Silver chloride as sacrificial template to form silver chloride and gold-silver alloy hybrid nanocages for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol

Abstract

Hollow cubic silver chloride and gold-silver alloy hybrid nanocages (AgCl-AuAg HNCs) were synthesized using silver chloride as a sacrificial template. AgCl nanostructures were readily synthesized by a mixture of silver nitrate (AgNO3) and sodium chloride (NaCl) solution. Chloroauric acid (HAuCl4) and ascorbic acid (AA) served as the gold precursor and reducing agent. Due to the capping and directing effect of Ag+ and Cl− ions, gold-silver alloy nanocages were formed. The particle size and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) peak of AgCl-AuAg HNCs can be tunable from 97 to 116 nm, and 600 nm to 740 nm with different molar ratio of AgNO3 and HAuCl4. The average particle size and shell thickness were 113.5 ± 19.6 nm and 14.2 ± 5.2 nm at molar ratio of 1:1.225, respectively. The synthesized AgCl-AuAg HNCs exhibited excellent catalytic properties and the apparent rate constant (Kapp) increased from 0.2046 min−1 to 1.8894 min−1 with increasing catalyst valume from 10 to 70 μL. The maximum turnover frequency (TOF) of the AgCl-AuAg HNCs reached up to 6.51 min −1 (390.6 h − 1) with 50 μL of AgCl-AuAg HNCs solution. It is expected that these AgCl-AuAg HNCs can be applied in water pollution control and environmental detection applications.