Protein Assisted Fabrication of Metallic Nanorings and Spherical Nanoparticles for Electrocatalytic and Organocatalytic Applications

Abstract

Inspiration from nature has driven the development and application of greener nanomaterials prepared using biotemplates in the field of nanoscience. Compared to traditional chemical routes, bioinspired nanomaterial synthesis has the advantage of mild synthetic conditions such as aqueous environment, ambient temperature, and no requirement for organic capping agent. In addition, the structures of some biomolecules make it possible to fabricate nanomaterials with complex and interesting morphology that are difficult to achieve through chemical methods. In this study, tobacco mosaic virus coat protein (TMV cp) was investigated as a versatile template to mediate the synthesis of nanorings and spherical nanoparticles under neutral and alkaline conditions, respectively. While the prepared silver nanorings displayed superior selectivity (95% Faradaic Efficiency) and stability of catalyzing CO2 electroreduction (CO2 RR) compared to free silver nanoparticles prepared by chemical methods, the platinum nanorings showed excellent electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Spherical nanoparticles synthesized under alkaline conditions (Pt, Pd and Au NPs) were also investigated for their catalytic behavior towards organic transformations such as 4-nitrophenol reduction and alkyne hydrogenation.