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The combination of noble metal and oxide support is a good approach to reduce the cost of noble metal catalyst and improve the stability of nanocatalyst in chemical reactions. Here, noble metal/zinc oxide composites, including Pd/ZnO and Pt/ZnO, have been facilely prepared through the general one-pot hydrothermal method. Importantly, the morphology of composites can be tuned from tube, flower, and star to skin needling-like shapes by easily adjusting the alkalinity of the reaction solution. By investigating the growth mechanism and influencing factors of the morphology of noble metal/zinc oxide composites, the differences of the morphology of composites can be ascribed to various growing units and directions of ZnO crystal under different alkalinities. Among them, Pd/ZnO composites exhibited both higher catalytic activity and excellent stability in the Suzuki coupling reaction between iodobenzene and phenylboronic acid and the reduction of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol by sodium borohydride. Such supported composites will potentially be used as green and sustainable catalysts for many chemical reactions.

The formation of different Au nanocrystal core-resin shell structures through the control of the nanocrystal assembly and shell polymerization is investigated. 4-Mercaptophenol is employed together with formaldehyde as the resin monomers. 4-Mercaptophenol molecules bond to the surface of Au nanocrystals so that the resultant phenolic resin can intimately encapsulate Au nanocrystals. The morphologies of the obtained structures are determined by the nanocrystal assembly and the monomer polymerization behaviors, which are controlled by the solution pH as well as the monomer amounts. At pH = 8-9, Au nanorods are assembled and fused together under hydrothermal conditions in a preferential end-to-end manner. The fused structures are coated with a layer of resin, with the thickness controlled by the supplied amounts of the monomers. At pH = ∼10, Au nanorods are coated with resin of controllable thicknesses and separated from each other. The resin-coated Au nanorods are stable in both aqueous and nonaqueous solutions. At pH = ∼12, Au nanorods are coated with a thin layer of resin and assembled together in a side-by-side manner. A similar assembly and resin coating behavior is also observed with Au nanopolyhedrons. Moreover, plasmonic-fluorescent bifunctional structures are readily produced by incorporating CdTe nanocrystals in the resin shell that is coated on Au nanocrystals, owing to the presence of a number of thiol groups in the resin shell.

Bifunctional heterostructures composed of gold nanorods and hematite nanoparticle aggregates are prepared facilely through the hydrothermal decomposition of ferric acetylacetonate on the surface of the nanorods. The gold nanorod in the heterostructure is partially coated with the hematite nanoparticle aggregates. The hematite coating is porous. These heterostructures exhibit both plasmonic and superparamagnetic properties. They are well-dispersed in aqueous solutions. Such heterostructures will be potentially useful for many biotechnological applications., (© 2011 American Chemical Society)

A series of photochromic spirooxazine-containing zinc(II) diimine bis-thiolate complexes were successfully synthesized, and their photophysical and photochromic properties were studied. The X-ray crystal structure of complex 1a has also been determined. Upon excitation by UV light at 330 nm, all the ligands and complexes exhibit photochromic behavior. The thermal bleaching kinetics of the ligands and the complexes were studied in dimethylformamide at various temperatures. The photochemical quantum yields for the photochromic reactions of the ligands and complexes were also determined.