Catalytically active and thermally stable core-shell gold-silica nanorods for CO oxidation
Journal article, 2021

Deactivation based on sintering phenomena is one of the most costly issues for the industrial application of metal nanoparticle catalysts. To address this drawback, mesoporous silica encapsulation is reported as a promising strategy to stabilize metallic nanoparticles towards use in high temperature catalytic applications. These protective shells provide significant structural support to the nanoparticles, while the mesoporosity allows for efficient transport of the reactants to the catalytically active surface of the metallic nanoparticle in the core. Here, we extend the use of gold nanorods with mesoporous silica shells by investigating their stability in the CO oxidation reaction as an example of high temperature gas phase catalysis. Gold nanorods were chosen as the model system due to the availability of a simple, high yield synthesis method for both the metallic nanorods and the mesoporous silica shells. We demonstrate the catalytic activity of gold nanorods with mesoporous silica shells at temperatures up to 350 degrees C over several cycles, as well as the thermal stability up to 500 degrees C, and compare these results to surfactant-stabilized gold nanorods of similar size, which degrade, and lose most of their catalytic activity, before reaching 150 degrees C. These results show that the gold nanorods protected by the mesoporous silica shells have a significantly higher thermal stability than surfactant-stabilized gold nanorods and that the mesoporous silica shell allows for stable catalytic activity with little degradation at high temperatures.

Author

Yidong Chen

Student at Chalmers

Sarah Lerch

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

Zafer Say

Chalmers, Physics, Chemical Physics

Christopher Tiburski

Chalmers, Physics, Chemical Physics

Christoph Langhammer

Chalmers, Physics, Chemical Physics

Kasper Moth-Poulsen

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

RSC Advances

20462069 (eISSN)

Vol. 11 19 11642-11650

Subject Categories

Materials Chemistry

Other Chemical Engineering

Other Chemistry Topics

Infrastructure

Chalmers Materials Analysis Laboratory

DOI

10.1039/d1ra01577j

More information

Latest update

4/9/2021 7