Abstract
Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have emerged in recent decades as attractive and selective catalysts for sustainable organic synthesis. Nanostructured gold is indeed environmentally friendly and benign for human health; at the same time, it is active, under different morphologies, in a large variety of oxidation and reduction reactions of interest for the chemical industry. To stabilize the AuNPs and optimize the chemical environment of the catalytic sites, a wide library of natural and synthetic polymers has been proposed. This review describes the main routes for the preparation of AuNPs supported/embedded in synthetic organic polymers and compares the performances of these catalysts with those of the most popular AuNPs supported onto inorganic materials applied in hydrogenation and oxidation reactions. Some examples of cascade coupling reactions are also discussed where the polymer-supported AuNPs allow for the attainment of remarkable activity and selectivity.
Highlights
Sanitary Environmental Engineering Division (SEED), Department of Civil Engineering, Department of Chemistry and Biology “Adolfo Zambelli”, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 84084 Fisciano, SA, Italy
Polymer supported AuNPs have gained a relevant position in the field of catalysis for sustainable organic synthesis
Researchers active in the field have often questioned the real advantage of using organic polymer supports instead of the most conventional inorganic supports
Summary
Most the procedures for the synthesis of supported AuNPs for catalytic applications can be subdivided into four main categories, namely: impregnation, depositionprecipitation, co-precipitation, and colloid deposition [18,19,20]. Physical-chemical methods comprise ex-situ synthesis where the metal particles are generated externally to the polymer and mixed together [55] and in situ synthesis of AuNPs-polymer composites obtained via reduction of a gold precursor in the presence of the polymer The latter approach is simple, rapid, cost-effective, does not require sophisticated equipment, and leads to the synthesis of well-controlled sizes and shapes of AuNPs to be applied in catalysis [17,20,24,53,56,57,58,59,60,61]. The sPSB polymeric support is nanoporous, semicrystalline, and polymorphic, conferring peculiar properties to the catalytic system (vide infra) [37,67,68,69]
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