LAUSR

The uniform yolk-shell structured resorcinol formaldehyde (RF) nanocapsules containing a lot of ultrafine Au nanoparticles (NPs) in the cavity have been successfully fabricated by smartly employing dendrimer-like mesoporous silica nanoparticles (DMSNs) with three-dimensional dendritic superstructure as hard template. DMSNs have three advantages as the template to support the loading of more active species on particle surface (1), produce the rough internal surface of the RF nanocapsules (2), and cause the formation of large mesopores in the shell (3). Porous hollow carbon nanospheres containing many Au NPs in the cavity were fabricated by calcining DMSNs-NH2@Au NPs@RF in inert atmosphere and subsequently removing silica template. The RF nanocapsules@Au NPs exhibit excellent catalytic activity and stability in the model catalytic reduction reaction of 4-nitrophenol due to the unique structure of RF nanocapsules coupled with ultra-dispersed Au NPs. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.