Confined Generation of Homogeneously Dispersed Au and SnO2 Nanoparticles in Layered Silicate as Synergistic Catalysts

Zhe Chen; Qiang Huang; Yifei Zhang; Peng Sheng; Zhimin Cui

doi:10.1021/acs.langmuir.0c03216

Confined Generation of Homogeneously Dispersed Au and SnO₂ Nanoparticles in Layered Silicate as Synergistic Catalysts

Langmuir. 2021 Feb 23;37(7):2341-2348. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.0c03216. Epub 2021 Feb 9.

Authors

Zhe Chen¹, Qiang Huang¹, Yifei Zhang¹, Peng Sheng², Zhimin Cui³

Affiliations

¹ MOE Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental System Optimization, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, PR China.
² Material Laboratory of State Grid Corporation of China, State Key Laboratory of Advanced Transmission Technology, Global Energy Interconnection Research Institute Company, Ltd., Beijing 102209, PR China.
³ Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, PR China.

PMID: 33560859
DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.0c03216

Abstract

With the aid of the confined conversion of layered silicate RUB-15, homogeneously dispersed Au and SnO₂ nanoparticles (NPs) were generated in the confined layer space of RUB-15. The Au-SnO₂/SiO₂ composite was obtained with the structure that ultrafine Au and SnO₂ NPs were supported on SiO₂ lamellas. Benefited by the Sn(II)-assisted in situ reduction strategy, Au NPs were highly uniformed and evenly distributed in/on the RUB-15. This Au-SnO₂/SiO₂ composite was employed as a catalyst to the reduction of 4-nitrophenol showing excellent catalytic activity. The catalytic rate constant at room temperature was calculated to be 6.64 min^-1, which was dramatically higher than that of Au/SiO₂ composite produced by reduction with hydrazine hydrate on the same support of layered silicate RUB-15. The interaction between Au and SnO₂ NPs increased the electron density around Au NPs, which was demonstrated to be an essential factor to the excellent catalytic activity of the Au-SnO₂/SiO₂ composite. The simple and universal synthesis method afforded precise control over the size/spatial arrangement of Au and SnO₂ NPs on SiO₂ lamellas. The high activity of the Au-SnO₂/SiO₂ composite demonstrated that the strategy used in this study has good potential application prospect. Furthermore, this work provided new perspective on the catalysis mechanism to the metal/semiconductor synergistic catalyst system.