Synthesis of wrinkle silica nanospheres by solvent evaporation-induced self-assembly method for hydrogenation reaction

Abstract

Wrinkle silica nanoparticles (WSNs) possess the typical characteristics in their short diffusion path and central-radial pore structure, which are favorable to use in a wide range of practical application. In this research, a solvent evaporation-induced self-assembly strategy was adopted for the preparation of WSN materials to give an insight into the formation mechanism of the WSNs. Through one-step temperature-controlled method, it was found that the WSNs could be successfully synthesized under the temperature of 60 °C, while the pore sizes and particle sizes were both gradually decreased as the synthesis temperature continued to increase. Comparably, a two-step temperature-controlled method was employed through modulating the stirring time length in order to synthesize silica nanospheres with large pore size and small particle size. The results showed that Ni2P/WSNs-8+16 catalyst performed the highest naphthalene hydrogenation activity (almost 100% conversion at 300 °C) when the stirring time in the first stage and the second stage was 8 h and 16 h, respectively.