Poly(ionic liquids) hollow nanospheres with PDMAEMA as joint support of highly dispersed gold nanoparticles for thermally adjustable catalysis

摘要

A smart hollow hybrid system was prepared by introducing poly(2-(1-methylimidazolium 3-yl)-ethyl methacrylate chloride) (PMIMC) network, the temperature-responsive PDMAEMA brushes, and Au nanoparticles into silica nanoparticles through two-step surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization. TEM, FTIR, EDX, XRD, XPS, and TGA were used to characterize the morphology and structure of air@PMIMC-PDMAEMA-Au hairy hollow nanospheres. The result showed that Au nanoparticles with an average diameter of 1.5 +/- 0.2 nm were homogeneously embedded inside the PMIMC-PDMAEMA shell. Catalytic activity of the as-synthesized air@PMIMC-PDMAEMA-Au hairy hollow nanospheres were investigated using the reduction of 4-nitrophenol with NaBH4 as a model reaction. It was found that the joint structures of PMIMC hollow nanospheres and PDMAEMA brushes lead to production of the highly active and stable catalyst for reduction of 4-nitrophenol. Furthermore, the obtained air@PMIMC-PDMAEMA-Au hairy hollow nanospheres were found to have a thermally adjustable catalytic activity for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol.