Issue 11, 2015

Cyclodextrin modified microgels as “nanoreactor” for the generation of Au nanoparticles with enhanced catalytic activity

Abstract

We report a facile and green method for the fabrication of hybrid microgels by the immobilization of catalytically active Au nanoparticles in α-cyclodextrin (α-CD) modified poly(N-vinylcaprolactam) (PVCL) microgels without addition of reducing agent and surfactant. It has been shown that only in the case of α-CD modified microgels metal particles were immobilized inside the colloidal gels, which is due to a coordination of the cyclodextrin molecules to the surface of Au nanoparticles. The PVCL-α-CD-Au composite particles can work efficiently as catalyst for the reduction of aromatic nitro-compounds by using the reduction of 4-nitrophenol (Nip) and 2,6-dimethyl-4-nitrophenol (DMNip) as model reactions. Most importantly, due to the selective binding ability of α-CDs to certain reagents, the synthesized hybrid microgels show different catalytic activity for the target compounds during the catalytic reactions: a significant enhancement in the catalytic activity has been observed for the reduction of Nip, while no obvious effect has been found for the reduction of DMNip.

Graphical abstract: Cyclodextrin modified microgels as “nanoreactor” for the generation of Au nanoparticles with enhanced catalytic activity

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
09 Jan 2015
Accepted
13 Feb 2015
First published
13 Feb 2015

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2015,3, 6187-6195

Author version available

Cyclodextrin modified microgels as “nanoreactor” for the generation of Au nanoparticles with enhanced catalytic activity

H. Jia, D. Schmitz, A. Ott, A. Pich and Y. Lu, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2015, 3, 6187 DOI: 10.1039/C5TA00197H

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