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Cucurbit[7]uril-based high-performance catalytic microreactors.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Abstract

Catalytic microreactors manufactured using microfluidic devices have received significant research interest in recent years. However, little attention has been paid to immobilising metallic nanoparticles (NPs) onto microchannel walls for high efficiency catalytic reactions. We demonstrate a facile preparation of cucurbit[7]uril-based catalytic microreactors, where metallic NPs are immobilised onto microchannels via supramolecular complexation with methyl viologen@cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]). These microreactors exhibit a remarkable catalytic activity owing to the substantially high surface area to volume ratio of the microchannels and metallic NPs. Superior to most conventional heterogeneous catalytic reactions, separation post reaction and complicated recycling steps of the catalysts are not required. Moreover, CB[7] can complex a variety of metallic NPs to its portal, providing a multifunctional high-performance in situ catalytic platform.

Description

Keywords

0306 Physical Chemistry (incl. Structural), 0912 Materials Engineering, 0303 Macromolecular and Materials Chemistry

Journal Title

Nanoscale

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2040-3364
2040-3372

Volume Title

10

Publisher

Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
Sponsorship
European Commission (607602)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/G060649/1)
European Research Council (240629)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L504920/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/F035535/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L027151/1)
This work was supported by the Chinese Scholarship Council and Cambridge Trust (X.R.), EP/L504920/1 (Y.W.), the Marie Curie FP7 SASSYPOL ITN (607602) programme (J.L.), EPSRC (EP/F0355351 and EP/G060649/1) and the ERC (ASPiRe, StG 240629) (O.A.S.).