TY - JOUR
T1 - Au101-rGO nanocomposite
T2 - immobilization of phosphine-protected gold nanoclusters on reduced graphene oxide without aggregation
AU - Mousavi, Hanieh
AU - Yin, Yanting
AU - Howard-Fabretto, Liam
AU - Sharma, Shailendra Kumar
AU - Golovko, Vladimir
AU - Andersson, Gunther G.
AU - Shearer, Cameron J.
AU - Metha, Gregory F.
PY - 2021/3/7
Y1 - 2021/3/7
N2 - Graphene supported transition metal clusters are of great interest for potential applications, such as catalysis, due to their unique properties. In this work, a simple approach to deposit Au101(PPh3)21Cl5(Au101NC) on reduced graphene oxide (rGO)viaanex situmethod is presented. Reduction of graphene oxide at native pH (pH ≈ 2) to rGO was performed under aqueous hydrothermal conditions. Decoration of rGO sheets with controlled content of 5 wt% Au was accomplished using only pre-synthesised Au101NC and rGO as precursors and methanol as solvent. High resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy indicated that the cluster size did not change upon deposition with an average diameter of 1.4 ± 0.4 nm. It was determined that the rGO reduction method was crucial to avoid agglomeration, with rGO reduced at pH ≈ 11 resulting in agglomeration. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to confirm the deposition of Au101NCs and show the presence of triphenyl phosphine ligands, which together with attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, advocates that the deposition of Au101NCs onto the surface of rGO was facilitatedvianon-covalent interactions with the phenyl groups of the ligands. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and thermogravimetric analysis were used to determine the gold loading and both agree with a gold loading ofca. 4.8-5 wt%. The presented simple and mild strategy demonstrates that good compatibility between size-specific phosphine protected gold clusters and rGO can prevent aggregation of the metal clusters. This work contributes towards producing an agglomeration-free synthesis of size-specific ligated gold clusters on rGO that could have wide range of applications.
AB - Graphene supported transition metal clusters are of great interest for potential applications, such as catalysis, due to their unique properties. In this work, a simple approach to deposit Au101(PPh3)21Cl5(Au101NC) on reduced graphene oxide (rGO)viaanex situmethod is presented. Reduction of graphene oxide at native pH (pH ≈ 2) to rGO was performed under aqueous hydrothermal conditions. Decoration of rGO sheets with controlled content of 5 wt% Au was accomplished using only pre-synthesised Au101NC and rGO as precursors and methanol as solvent. High resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy indicated that the cluster size did not change upon deposition with an average diameter of 1.4 ± 0.4 nm. It was determined that the rGO reduction method was crucial to avoid agglomeration, with rGO reduced at pH ≈ 11 resulting in agglomeration. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to confirm the deposition of Au101NCs and show the presence of triphenyl phosphine ligands, which together with attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, advocates that the deposition of Au101NCs onto the surface of rGO was facilitatedvianon-covalent interactions with the phenyl groups of the ligands. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and thermogravimetric analysis were used to determine the gold loading and both agree with a gold loading ofca. 4.8-5 wt%. The presented simple and mild strategy demonstrates that good compatibility between size-specific phosphine protected gold clusters and rGO can prevent aggregation of the metal clusters. This work contributes towards producing an agglomeration-free synthesis of size-specific ligated gold clusters on rGO that could have wide range of applications.
KW - Graphene supported transition metal clusters
KW - ex situ methods
KW - Reduction of graphene oxide
KW - aqueous hydrothermal conditions
KW - X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
KW - triphenyl phosphine ligands
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85102293138&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/ARC/FT190100854
U2 - 10.1039/d0na00927j
DO - 10.1039/d0na00927j
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85102293138
SN - 2516-0230
VL - 3
SP - 1422
EP - 1430
JO - Nanoscale Advances
JF - Nanoscale Advances
IS - 5
ER -