New Hybrid Organic‐inorganic Multifunctional Materials Based on Polydopamine‐like Chemistry

Abstract

A simple one‐pot procedure under mild conditions has been developed with the aim of preparing a set of hybrid organic‐inorganic multifunctional materials. This procedure is based on the use of catechol and KIO4 as oxidizing agent in conjunction with 3‐aminopropyl‐, substituted 3‐aminopropyl‐ and 3‐methylimidazolium‐1‐trimethoxypropylsilane mimicking polydopamine‐like chemistry. Reactions were carried out in water at room temperature and 70 °C to give fifteen materials that were characterised by using several techniques (nitrogen physisorption, TGA, XPS, 13C and 29Si CP‐MAS NMR, IR, pHPZC). Knoevenagel reaction was chosen as a good probe to investigate the availability of functional groups on the surface of the materials. The most active catalytic materials were tested in recycling procedures. Such simple procedure is of broad interest for the scientific community and it open the doors to the development of new hybrid organic‐inorganic multifunctional materials for several purposes.

First Evidence of Tris(catecholato)silicate Formation from Hydrolysis of an Alkyl Bis(catecholato)silicate

“…In particular, material A had an inhibiting catalytic effect (6% yield ca. ); indeed, the uncatalyzed reaction gave a higher yield (30%) when the reaction was carried out in ethanol [30]. This material was the only one that was synthesised without the use of the oxidant KIO4.…”

“…Recently, we have described a simple one-pot procedure under mild conditions for the synthesis of a set of hybrid organic-inorganic multifunctional materials by mimicking polydopamine-like chemistry [30,31]. The synthetic procedure is based on the use of catechol catechol and KIO4 as an oxidising agent, followed by the reaction with 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (or dimethoxymethyl-) or their corresponding substituted amines (Scheme 1a).…”