An inorganic capping strategy for the seeded growth of versatile bimetallic nanostructures.

Metal nanostructures have attracted great attention in various fields due to their tunable properties through precisely tailored sizes, compositions and structures. Using mesoporous silica (mSiO2) as the inorganic capping agent and encapsulated Pt nanoparticles as the seeds, we developed a robust seeded growth method to prepare uniform bimetallic nanoparticles encapsulated in mesoporous silica shells (PtM@mSiO2, M = Pd, Rh, Ni and Cu). Unexpectedly, we found that the inorganic silica shell is able to accommodate an eight-fold volume increase in the metallic core by reducing its thickness.

In situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy studies of kinetic interaction between platinum(II) ions and UiO-66 series metal-organic frameworks.

The interaction of guest Pt(II) ions with UiO-66-X (X = NH2, H, NO2, OMe, F) series metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) in aqueous solution was investigated using in situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy. All of these MOFs were found to be able to coordinate with Pt(II) ions. The Pt(II) ions in UiO-66-X MOFs generally coordinate with 1.

High-temperature-stable and regenerable catalysts: platinum nanoparticles in aligned mesoporous silica wells.

We report the synthesis, structural characterization, thermal stability study, and regeneration of nanostructured catalysts made of 2.9 nm Pt nanoparticles sandwiched between a 180 nm SiO2 core and a mesoporous SiO2 shell. The SiO2 shell consists of 2.