Facile synthesis of gold nanocages with silver nanocubes templates dual metal effects enabled SERS imaging and catalytic reduction

Farukh Mansoor; Huangxian Ju; Madiha Saeed; Shamsa Kanwal

doi:10.1039/d3ra06344e

Facile synthesis of gold nanocages with silver nanocubes templates dual metal effects enabled SERS imaging and catalytic reduction

RSC Adv. 2023 Oct 27;13(45):31366-31374. doi: 10.1039/d3ra06344e. eCollection 2023 Oct 26.

Authors

Farukh Mansoor^{1

2}, Huangxian Ju³, Madiha Saeed^{1

4}, Shamsa Kanwal²

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices & Division of Functional Materials and Nanodevices, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences Ningbo 315201 P. R. China.
² Department of Chemistry, Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology Abu Dhabi Road Rahim Yar Khan Pakistan shamsa.sham@gmail.com.
³ State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Sciences Department of Chemistry, Nanjing University Nanjing 210023 China.
⁴ Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Biomedical Materials, COMSATS University, Islamabad, Lahore Campus Lahore Pakistan.

Abstract

Silver (Ag) nanomaterials featuring a cubic shape particularly represent supreme class of advance nanomaterials. This work explored a new precursor and its effect on morphological features of silver (Ag) nanocubes (NCs) serving as sacrificial templates for facile synthesis of gold NCs. The AgNCs were initially prepared utilizing sodium thiosulphate (Na₂S₂O₃) as relatively stable S^2- producing species along with a soft etchant source KCl. The effects of different potassium halides were evaluated to grasp control over seed mediated growth of Ag nanocubes. Taking the advantages of dual metallic properties, Ag@4MBA@AuNCs nanostructure was synthesized using 4-mercaptobenzoic acid (4MBA) as a Raman reporter molecule. This nanostructure showed 10¹⁰-times enhancement in surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) signal, leading to a highly sensitive imaging probe for the detection of even three breast cancer cells (MCF-7 cells) in vitro. Subsequently, the oxidative nanopeeling well accompanied by incorporation of Au/Ag alloy nanoparticles on AuNCs corona assembly was achieved, which facilitated the catalytic reduction of toxic nitrophenol to eco-friendly aminophenol. Such sophisticated and engineered nanoassemblies possess broad applications in bioanalysis.