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We demonstrate an easy and scalable room-temperature synthesis of CuO nanoparticle incorporated graphitic carbon nitride composites without the aid of any inert atmosphere. First principles calculations based upon density functional theory, in addition to the experimental validations, have been employed to investigate the electronic and optical properties of the nanocomposites. An insight into the band structure tunability, phase stabilisation and the dependancy of the catalytic properties of the nanocomposites upon the amount of Cu loading, in the form of Cu oxides, have been provided in this work.

Thermally stable phase pure mesoporous cubic (Im3m) alumina films were synthesized on glass substrates under ambient conditions. These cubic alumina films incorporated with Au NPs exhibited excellent catalytic property.

ABSTRACT:We report a combined small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and mass spectrometric (MS) study of the growth of gold clusters within proteins, in the solution state. Two different proteins, namely, lysozyme (Lyz) and bovine serum albumin (BSA), were used for this study. SAXS study of clusters grown in Lyz shows the presence of a 0.8 nm gold core, which is in agreement with the Au 10 cluster observed in MS. Dynamic light scattering suggests the size of the cluster core to be 1.2 nm. For BSA, however, a bigger core size was observed, comparable to the Au 33 core obtained in MS. Concentration-and time-dependent data do not show much change in the core size in both SAXS and MS investigations. When metal−protein adducts were incubated for longer time in solution, nanoparticles were formed and protein size decreased, possibly due to the fragmentation of the latter during nanoparticle formation. The data are in agreement with dynamic light scattering studies. This work helps to directly visualize cluster growth within protein templates in solution.

We report the synthesis of equimolar Pd–Ru alloy nanoparticles (NPs) incorporated mesoporous alumina films (Pd–Ru/MAF) by the sol–gel route. The synthetic strategy involves homogeneous mixing of the Pd2+ and Ru3+ ions in the alumina sol containing P123 micelles. Dip-coated films, prepared on ordinary glass substrates, were thermally reduced at a relatively lower temperature (500 °C) to generate equimolar Pd–Ru/MAF with a nominal molar composition of Pd:Ru:AlO1.5 = 2:2:96. Electron microscopy studies revealed uniformly distributed Pd–Ru alloy NPs in a mesoporous alumina–alumina sphere composite film matrix. The P123/alumina nanocomposite acted as an excellent breeding medium to form Pd–Ru (∼1:1) alloy NPs despite the poor miscibility of the two metals. Pd–Ru/MAF showed excellent catalytic performances with highest normalized rate constant values (5.43 × 1014 min–1 mol–2) and possessed good reusability compared to the corresponding monometallic analogues in the reduction of aqueous 4-nitrophenol in the presence of NaBH4 at 25 °C.