Combinatorial Identification of Hydrides in a Ligated Ag40 Nanocluster with Non-compact Metal Core

No formation of bulk silver hydride has been reported. Until very recently, only few silver nanoclusters containing hydrides have been successfully prepared. However, due to the lack of effective techniques and also poor stability of hydride-containing Ag nanoclusters, the identification of hydrides’ location within Ag nanoclusters is challenging and not yet achieved although some successes have been reported on clusters of several Ag atoms. In this work, we report a detailed structural and spectroscopic characterization of the [Ag40(DMBT)24(PPh3)8H12]2+ (Ag40H12) cluster (DMBT=2,4-dimethylbenzenethiol). The metal framework consists of three-concentric shells of Ag8@Ag24@Ag8 which can be de…