Probing the Ag – liquid gallium system and its interaction with redox active solutions for catalysis and AgTCNQ formation

Abstract

The creation of liquid metal alloys that are reacted with species in solution is a relatively new approach to the synthesis of functional nanomaterials. In this work we explore the liquid Ag–Ga system and its interaction with redox active species in aqueous solution in the areas of heterogeneous catalysis and charge transfer complex formation. It was found that when Ag is alloyed with Ga that solid microwires of Ag2Ga were formed over time with a width of ca. 1–1.5 µm of up to 160 µm in length. This Ga/Ag2Ga composite was then investigated for the discolouration of methylene blue dye in both the liquid and solid state where little difference in activity was found resulting in 40% discolouration after 30 min. However, if nitrogen gas was passed through the liquid form of the catalyst the conversion efficiency of the catalyst increased significantly up to 99% after 1 min and could be re-used for up to 10 cycles. In addition, the catalytic conversion of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol at the liquid Ga/Ag2Ga catalyst was significantly greater than liquid Ga and could be reused for up to 5 cycles. The interaction of liquid Ag–Ga with the well-known electron acceptor 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ) was also studied where it was found that a reaction only occurred immediately after mixing Ag microparticles with liquid Ga and before any Ag2Ga microwires were formed. The reaction conditions of bubbling nitrogen gas through the liquid Ag–Ga catalysts in an acetonitrile solution of TCNQ resulted in the time dependent formation of various morphologies of the semi-conducting charge transfer complex AgTCNQ. This work shows that alloying metals with Ga can result in the time dependent formation of a variety of materials under different reaction conditions when exposed to solution based redox active species.