Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been widely used for diverse applications such as semiconductors, 1 catalysis, 2 and biomedicine. Notably, AuNPs offer the advantage of tunable physical and chemical properties depending on their shape and size. For instance, gold nanostars exhibit distinct properties over other shapes of AuNPs closely related to its design, with amplified electromagnetic fields at the tips and enhanced hydrophilic environments at the indentations, making them useful in localized chemical manipulation and imaging applications. As another example, a specific size (28 × 8 nm) of gold nanorods was found to be the most effective size for plasmonic photothermal therapy for cancer treatment. Control of the nanoparticle morphology has been established for some recipes and limited ranges of synthesis conditions, while the theory is still developing not only for various other conditions of gold nanoparticles but also other metals and semiconductors. To advance the understanding of the underlying mechanism that play a role in each synthesis protocol, computational approaches including Density Functional Theory (DFT) have been conducted. However, it is impractical to simulate a sufficiently large system in a solution environment due to high computational cost. Furthermore, it is important to note that achieving reproducibility in nanoparticle synthesis can be challenging, given the sensitivity of the process to numerous experimental variables including human factors, reagent impurities and stock solution age, that are often missing or poorly described in the recipes. Among a number of AuNP synthesis protocols, seed-mediated growth of gold nanoparticles has been a popular method to produce AuNPs with anisotropic shapes. This method separates nucleation and growth processes in separate flasks leading to more controlled growth stages. Briefly, spherical gold seeds are formed through the reduction of Au(III) to Au using a strong reducing agent such as sodium borohydride. This results in a solution of Au seed particles, which are typically 1-4 nm in size. Then, an aliquot of this seed solution is mixed with a growth solution containing partially reduced Au(I), made by mixing an Au(III) source, a weak reducing agent, and other precursors. According to Personick and Mirkin, the seed-mediated growth process for gold nanoparticles can be understood through two primary pathways: kinetic growth and selective surface passivation. In the kinetically controlled pathway, both the effective concentration of Au(I) ion and the reduction potential of Au(I) are key factors influencing growth. In this context, adding ascorbic acid would increase the Au(I) reduction rate thereby promoting morphologies with higher energy surfaces (e.g. trisoctahedra>cube>octahedra). On the other hand, in the surface passivation pathway, growth can also be modulated by the deposition of a small amount of Ag onto the Au surface, referred to as Ag underpotential deposition (UPD).