Publication date: 15th May 2025
Literature preparations of quantum dot starting materials, including metal carboxylates, can be challenging, and difficult to perform reproducibly. This may be for a variety of reasons, including incompletely defined raw materials or difficulty removing adventitious small molecules and/or condensate products. Exploring other options for the syntheses of metal carboxylates and attempting to understand existing procedures through the lens of synthetic chemistry could yield insights into how high-quality materials could be accessed regularly. Here, we will examine some common QD starting materials, starting with cadmium oleate and indium myristate, attempt to parse any differences between common synthetic routes, and investigate whether other routes might generate useful materials.