Highly Efficient Reusable Sponge-Type Catalyst Carriers Based on Short Electrospun Fibers.

This study reports on gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) immobilized in a sponge made of short electrospun fibers (Au-sponge), which show surprisingly high reaction rates at extremely low gold amount. Au-sponges are made by freeze-drying of dispersions of short electrospun fibers with preimmobilization of AuNPs. The resulting Au-sponges show very low densities around 7 mg cm−3 corresponding to a pore volume of about 150 mL g−1, but low surface area and very low amount of AuNPs in the range of 0.29-3.56 wt%. In general, catalysts with immobilized AuNPs show much low reaction rates compared to systems with dispersed AuNPs. By contrast, the Au-sponge catalyst with immobilized AuNPs is discerned here as an extremely efficient catalyst even superior to other systems with dispersed AuNPs. The fidelity of the Au-sponges after reactions is good enough for manifold use and thereby provides a sustainable catalyst design as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]