Embedding catalytic nanoparticles inside mesoporous structures with controlled porosity: Au@TiO2

The ability to produce catalytic nanoparticles with controlled properties is key to developing and producing heterogeneous catalysts with optimized activity and selectivity. No less important is to maximize the nanoparticle dispersion over high area supports maintaining their optimized properties. Here we detail a general procedure to produce heterogeneous catalysts containing a large surface area mesoporous support and highly dispersed catalytic nanoparticles with controlled properties. We exemplify the developed method using colloidal gold nanocrystals as the catalytically active phase and titanium oxide as the paradigmatic support. Our synthetic strategy is based on the growth of an inorganic–organic hybrid mesoporous material from the surface of the colloidal nanocrystals. A variety of organic spacers allows tuning the final porosity of the support. The good accessibility of the active catalytic sites in these materials is demonstrated by high CO oxidation conversion values.