[en] Cadmium selenide has been synthesized directly from cadmium chloride in aqueous N,N'-dimethylformamide (DMF) by the use of cycloocteno-1,2,3-selenadiazole or the element itself as the source of selenium. The dark brown powders that are the end-products of these reactions were characterized by reflectance spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy

[en] Synthesis of oleic acid capped copper nano-particles has been carried out by use of sodium formaldehyde sulfoxylate (SFS) in aqueous medium. Nano-copper can be effectively coated with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). Phase-pure nano-Cu can be obtained when water/acetone was used as aqueous medium. It is observed that the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) phenomena can be controlled during synthesis by the use of suitable reagent system, e.g. absorption band in presence of PVA can be blue shifted. As-prepared copper nano-particles were characterized by X-ray diffraction measurements (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive analysis of X-rays (EDAX), thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) and Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FTIR). XRD analysis revealed broad pattern for fcc crystal structure of copper metal. The particle size by use of Scherrer's equation was calculated to be about 20 nm. TGA revealed ∼10% weight loss due to the presence of surfactant. FTIR spectroscopy confirmed the presence of oleic acid around the particles

[en] Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) stabilized gold nanoparticles have been prepared in aqueous medium using two different reducing viz.; hydrazine hydrate, a stronger reducing agent and sodium formaldehydesulfoxylate (SFS), a slightly weaker reducing agent. SFS is used for first ever time for reduction of gold metal salt. The PVA stabilized gold nanoparticles solutions are wine red to blood red coloured and are stable over a long period of time with no indication of aggregation. The solution shows strong visible light absorptions in the range of 520-540 nm, characteristics of gold nanoparticles. Powder X-ray diffraction patterns of freshly prepared films containing gold nanoparticles indicated particles size to be about 15 nm. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) of a more than two-week-old sample revealed well-defined non-agglomerated spherical particles of about 50 nm diameter in solutions