A basic understanding of the driving forces for the formation of multiligand coronas or self-assembled monolayers over metal nanoparticles is mandatory to control and predict the properties of ligand-protected nanoparticles. Herein, H nuclear magnetic resonance experiments and advanced density functional theory (DFT) modeling are combined to highlight the key parameters defining the efficiency of ligand exchange on dispersed gold nanoparticles. The compositions of the surface and of the liquid reaction medium are quantitatively correlated for bifunctional gold nanoparticles protected by a range of competing thiols, including an alkylthiol, arylthiols of varying chain length, thiols functionalized by ethyleneglycol units, and amide groups. These partitions are used to build scales that quantify the ability of a ligand to exchange dodecanethiol. Such scales can be used to target a specific surface composition by choosing the right exchange conditions (ligand ratio, concentrations, and particle size). In the specific case of arylthiols, the exchange ability scale is exploited with the help of DFT modeling to unveil the roles of intermolecular forces and entropic effects in driving ligand exchange. It is finally suggested that similar considerations may apply to other ligands and to direct biligand synthesis.

The interaction between aromatic thiols and the Au(111) surface is investigated using periodic DFT. Different SAM organizations were investigated, namely with different surface reconstructions (flat unreconstructed Au(111) and adatom Au(111) surface). DFT energetics on geometrically optimized SAMs and electronic analysis by means of projected density of states (PDOS) and the Crystal Orbital Hamilton Population (COHP) method, was used to interpret the adsorption property differences. It was found that the adsorption energy difference between the arylthiol chains adsorbed in T-shaped SAMs and adsorbed on flat unreconstructed Au(111) diminishes from long aryl tiols (tpt) to the short ones (dpt and mpt), indicating that the unreconstructed surface becomes more competitive energetically for short chain arylthiols (dpt and mpt). Moreover, the nature of the Au-S bond was found to be independent of the chain size. This leads us to conclude that the reconstruction, if any, is only dependent on the side chain interactions.

The hydrogen absorption into overlayers of Pd deposited on Au(111) has been investigated by density functional theory (DFT). Hydrogen concentrations, absorption environments, and geometrical and electronic effects have been analyzed, seeking for a better understanding of the general principles governing the process and the effect of foreign supports. The results show that the absorption is more favored than in pure Pd leading to lower absorption energies and less repulsive interactions due to the surface expansion induced by the gold larger lattice constant. Our findings also suggest that the hydrogen absorption process is more favorable for a less number of Pd overlayers. This situation changes gradually until the substrate influence is no longer detected and the pure palladium nature appears. An entangled combination of repulsive forces, strain effect, structural ordering and chemical affinity has been found. The kinetics of hydrogen absorption has been studied as well. Two cases were explored: (1) the absorption of an adsorbed hydrogen atom and (2) the bond-breaking and penetration of a H2 molecule.

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