An Assembly Route to Inorganic Catalytic Nanoreactors Containing Sub-10-nm Gold Nanoparticles with Anti-Aggregation Properties

An assembly route to prepare yolk-shell catalytic nanoreactors with a core of a 6.3nm Au nanoparticle and a mesoporous ZrO2 or TiO2 shell was reported. Catalytic nanoreactors having sub-10 nm Au nanoparticle cores were prepared by choosing dodecanethiol-capped 6.3 nm Au nanoparticles as the starting material for the catalytic core. The creation of hollow core allows the Au nanoparticles to deposit inside the hollow zirconia sphere. The as-made nanoreactor has a narrow size distribution centered at 1.6 nm, which is smaller than the size of the Au nanoparticles inside the nanoreactors. Au nanoparicles, with size larger than the pore size within the reactor shell, are expected to have anti-aggregation properties during catalysis or under high-temperature thermal treatment. The recycled nanoreactors catalysts exhibit similar catalytic activity to the original nanoreactors.