A general synthetic strategy of supported gold nanoparticles and their catalysis

INOR 868

Nanfeng Zheng, nzheng@chem.ucsb.edu, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 and Galen D. Stucky, stucky@chem.ucsb.edu, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106.
Although bulk gold is considered catalytically inactive, gold nanoparticles exhibit high catalytic activities towards different types of reactions. During the past two decades, a variety of techniques to prepare supported gold nanoparticle catalysts have been developed. However, the challenge remains of designing supported gold nanoparticles with well-defined parameters (e.g., particle size, size distribution, loading content, type of support). Deposition-precipitation (DP) represents the most popular preparation method of efficient gold catalysts but exhibits difficulty in preparing gold nanoparticles on acidic supports such as SiO2, WO3 and SiO2-Al2O3. Here we demonstrate a very general synthetic strategy that is applicable for the preparation of gold nanoparticles on oxides ranging from very acidic to very basic supports. First, monodisperse gold nanoparticles are prepared through a unique chemical reducing route. The synthesized monodisperse gold nanoparticles can then be well dispersed on oxide supports through weak interactions. After heat treatment in air, efficient supported gold nanoparticles can be obtained without sintering the nanoparticles. The catalysts show high activities towards selective oxidation of alcohols, aldehydes and alkenes by using air or oxygen as an oxidant under mild reaction conditions.
 

Inorganic Catalysts
8:30 AM-11:50 AM, Wednesday, 13 September 2006 Moscone Center -- Room 302, Oral

Division of Inorganic Chemistry

The 232nd ACS National Meeting, San Francisco, CA, September 10-14, 2006