In Situ Self-Assembly of Ultrastable Gold Nanoparticles on Polyvinyl Alcohol Nanofibrous Mats for Use as Highly Reusable Catalysts

Abstract

Designing highly stable and reusable catalytic systems based on Au nanoparticles (NPs) is a significant challenge in nanocatalysis research. Here, we have fabricated polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanofibrous mat/Au NP composite catalysts with NPs in uniform size and good distribution by use of a developed in situ growth approach. In this method, Au seeds were first adsorbed on PVA nanofibrous mat surfaces rather than on relatively large Au NPs and then used to grow NPs in Au seed solution; thus, the steric hindrance effect was alleviated and a high loading was used for Au NPs up to 11 wt %. Strong interfacial interactions between the Au NPs and the PVA nanofibrous mats due to introducing a large number of hydrogen bonds provide high thermal stability for the PVA side chains, long-term catalytic stability, and excellent reusability. Consequently, the proposed in situ grown PVA/Au NP nanofibrous mats produce high catalytic activity for at least 15 cycles over a 30 d period. This work provides a potential approach for fabricating highly stable and reusable metal NPs on polymer nanofibrous mats to facilitate a wide variety of applications.

Development and In Vitro Evaluation of Biocompatible PLA-Based Trilayer Nanofibrous Membranes for the Delivery of Nanoceria: A Novel Approach for Diabetic Wound Healing

“…This may be explained by the fact that well-dispersed inorganic Ce NPs loaded in polymeric NFs in the case of nCeO 2 -F3 and nCeO 2 -F4 could retard the diffusion of oxygen to NFs mats and acting as a heat barrier accompanied with retarding the escape of volatile products and eventually leading to higher thermal stability of NPs-loaded NFs [60]. As a result of strong interfacial interactions through hydrogen bonding between metal NPs and the -OH group of PVA, it produced a stabilized product with high thermal stability [61].…”