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Water-stable nanocrystals in a single step

Nanocrystals are increasingly used in high-tech applications and consumer products, but water-stable variants for life science and healthcare applications have production bottlenecks owing to complex syntheses. Now, water-stable nanocrystals are made in a single step by replacing ‘oily’ reagents with oxygen-rich alkoxy ligands and solvents, endowing the nanocrystals with broad solvent dispersibility.

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Fig. 1: Comparison of polar alkoxy reagents (ligands and solvents) and traditional nanocrystal synthesis reagents based primarily on oily alkanes.

References

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This is a summary of: Sarkar, S. et al. Nanocrystal synthesis with alkoxy reagents for dispersion in polar and non-polar solvents. Nat. Synth. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-025-00764-0 (2025).

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Water-stable nanocrystals in a single step. Nat. Synth 4, 785–786 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-025-00768-w

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