Solution characterization of zirconium oxo clusters

Group 4 metal oxo clusters are atomically precise models for colloidal nanocrystals as they consist of an inorganic core and an organic ligand shell. They are also important building blocks for MOFs, 3D-printing and polymers composites. Recently, we have elucidated their structure and ligand shell using solid state methods. Here we go one step further studying these materials in solution. Dynamic light scattering is a common technique to determine the solvodynamic diameter of nanocrystals. However, due to their small size, clusters present difficulties to the automatic data treatment, available in commercial software. Here we developed a data treatment method to fit DLS data of clusters, where we separate the signal into a contribution from the clusters itself combined with a contribution of number fluctuations. Additionally, diffusion ordered spectroscopy (DOSY) is used to study how these materials affect the viscosity of the solvent.