One-pot synthesis of Au-M@SiO2 (M = Rh, Pd, Ir, Pt) core-shell nanoparticles as highly efficient catalysts for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol

Junfang Hao; Bin Liu; Shinya Maenosono; Jianhui Yang

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-11756-x

One-pot synthesis of Au-M@SiO₂ (M = Rh, Pd, Ir, Pt) core-shell nanoparticles as highly efficient catalysts for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol

Sci Rep. 2022 May 10;12(1):7615. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-11756-x.

Authors

Junfang Hao¹, Bin Liu¹, Shinya Maenosono², Jianhui Yang³

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Natural Functional Molecule Chemistry of Ministry of Education, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Physico-Inorganic Chemistry, College of Chemistry & Materials Science, Northwest University, Xi'an, 710069, People's Republic of China.
² School of Materials Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa, 923-1292, Japan. shinya@jaist.ac.jp.
³ Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Natural Functional Molecule Chemistry of Ministry of Education, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Physico-Inorganic Chemistry, College of Chemistry & Materials Science, Northwest University, Xi'an, 710069, People's Republic of China. jianhui@nwu.edu.cn.

Abstract

The conversion of p-nitrophenol (4-NP) to p-aminophenol (4-AP) is of great significance for pharmaceutical and material manufacturing. In this work, Au-M@SiO₂ (M = Rh, Pd, Ir, Pt) nanoparticles (NPs) with core-shell structures, which are expected to be excellent catalysts for the transformation of 4-NP to 4-AP, were synthesized by a facile one-pot one-step method. The structure and composition of the NPs were characterized through transmission electron microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Au-M@SiO₂ (M = Rh, Pd, Ir, Pt) core-shell NPs showed excellent catalytic activity in the reduction of 4-NP, which is superior to most catalysts reported in the previous literature. The enhanced catalytic activity of Au-M@SiO₂ core-shell NPs is presumably related to the bimetallic synergistic effect. This study provides a simple strategy to synthesize core-shell bimetallic NPs for catalytic applications.