Two birds with one stone: anion templated ball-shaped Ag-56 and disc-like Ag-20 clusters

One-pot reaction of AgSBut and AgOAc in the methanol-ethanol-DMF solvent system under room temperature gave a ball-shaped Ag-56 cluster and a disc-like Ag-20 cluster. The formations of clusters 1 and 2 are templated by an in situ generated S2- ion from the cleavage of the S-C bond of SBut and CO32- ion from the fixation of atmospheric carbon dioxide, respectively. Interestingly, cluster 1 only emits bright-red light in the solid state at 77 K and is not emissive at room temperature.