Highly Efficient Reusable Sponge-Type Catalyst Carriers Based on Short Electrospun Fibers.

This study reports on gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) immobilized in a sponge made of short electrospun fibers (Au-sponge), which show surprisingly high reaction rates at extremely low gold amount. Au-sponges are made by freeze-drying of dispersions of short electrospun fibers with preimmobilization of AuNPs. The resulting Au-sponges show very low densities around 7 mg cm corresponding to a pore volume of about 150 mL g , but low surface area and very low amount of AuNPs in the range of 0.