Magnetic Fe3O4-Supported Gold Nanoflowers with Lattice-Selected Surfaces: Preparation and Catalytic Performance

Yoshiro Imura; Ryota Kan; Ryota Akiyama; Haruna Saito; Clara Morita-Imura; Takeshi Kawai

doi:10.1021/acsomega.0c02340

Magnetic Fe₃O₄-Supported Gold Nanoflowers with Lattice-Selected Surfaces: Preparation and Catalytic Performance

ACS Omega. 2020 Jun 19;5(25):15755-15760. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c02340. eCollection 2020 Jun 30.

Authors

Yoshiro Imura¹, Ryota Kan¹, Ryota Akiyama¹, Haruna Saito¹, Clara Morita-Imura², Takeshi Kawai¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Industrial Chemistry, Tokyo University of Science, 1-3 Kagurazaka, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8601, Japan.
² Department of Chemistry, Ochanomizu University, 2-1-1 Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-8610, Japan.

Abstract

Nanoflowers (NFs)-shape-controlled noble metal nanocrystals-have garnered significant attention because of their novel catalytic properties and applicability. In this paper, we report the preparation and catalytic performance of a magnetic Fe₃O₄-supported AuNF catalyst with a clean surface. The magnetically supported AuNFs were obtained by using magnetic Fe₃O₄ as the support. However, when nonmagnetic γ-Al₂O₃ was utilized as the support, the AuNFs did not exhibit a magnetic response. These supported AuNFs were utilized to catalyze the oxidation of 1-phenylethyl alcohol to acetophenone using air (1 atm) as the oxidant. The rate of formation of acetophenone using supported AuNFs was 8-fold higher than that of acetophenone using supported spherical Au nanoparticles of comparable size. In addition, the Fe₃O₄-supported AuNFs exhibited a higher rate of formation of acetophenone than the Al₂O₃-supported AuNFs. The Fe₃O₄-supported AuNFs were recovered using a magnet, and the recovered catalyst was reused under identical catalytic reaction conditions. The rate of formation of acetophenone using recovered Fe₃O₄-supported AuNFs remained unchanged, demonstrating no loss of catalytic activity.