Abstract
We report that transparent mesostructured silica/gold nanocomposite materials with an interpore distance of 4.1 nm, as-synthesized from a templated sol–gel synthesis method using discotic trinuclear gold(I) pyrazolate complex, were successfully utilized for the fabrication of thin film mesoporous silica nanocomposites containing gold nanoparticles. The material exhibited a highly ordered hexagonal structure when subjected to a thermal hydrogen reduction treatment at 210 °C. In contrast, when the material was subjected to calcination as a heat treatment from 190 to 450 °C, the thin film nanocomposites showed an intense d100 X-ray diffraction peak. Moreover, gold nanoparticles inside the thin film nanocomposites were confirmed by the presence of the d111 diffraction peak at 2θ = 38.2°, a surface plasmon resonance peak between 500–580 nm, and the spherical shape observed in the transmission electron microscope images, as well as the visual change in color from pink to purple. Interestingly, by simply dipping the material into a reaction solution of 4-nitrophenol at room temperature, the highly ordered structure of the as-fabricated silica/gold nanoparticle thin film composite after thermal hydrogen reduction at 210 °C resulted in an improved catalytic activity for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol compared to the material calcined at 250 °C. Such catalytic activity is due to the presence of gold nanoparticles of smaller size in the silicate channels of the highly ordered mesoporous film nanocomposites.
Highlights
Mesoporous silica nanomaterials with pore size between 2 to 50 nm [1] have been recently applied to the development of biomedical adsorbents [2,3,4], drug delivery systems [5,6,7], catalysts [8,9,10], as well as supports for metal nanoparticles [11,12,13] due to their large surface area, good thermal stability, high uniformity, and controllable pore size [1]
By using calcination and thermal hydrogen reduction in the range of 190 to 450 °C, we have demonstrated that mesoporous silica/gold nanoparticle thin film composites with a hexagonal structure could be successfully fabricated from as-synthesized mesostructured template materials
The best quality of the silica/gold film nanocomposites was found by thermal hydrogen reduction at 210 °C as determined from its intense d100 peak and clear transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image with a hexagonal alignment of the nanopores
Summary
Mesoporous silica nanomaterials with pore size between 2 to 50 nm [1] have been recently applied to the development of biomedical adsorbents [2,3,4], drug delivery systems [5,6,7], catalysts [8,9,10], as well as supports for metal nanoparticles [11,12,13] due to their large surface area, good thermal stability, high uniformity, and controllable pore size [1]. The thermal hydrogen reduction was determined to be the best heat treatment method for the preservation of the hexagonal structure and to limit the disruption and shrinkage of triethylene glycol (TEG) interpenetration into the silica wall when the temperature was increased near the full decomposition of the [Au3Pz3]C10TEG template.
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