Silica Encapsulated-Gold Nanoparticles as a Nano-reactor for Aerobic Oxidation of Benzyl alcohols and Tandem Oxidative A3 coupling Reactions in Water

In this work, the encapsulated-Au nanoparticles (NPs) into the silica hollow NPs were synthesized by microwave-assisted preparation of PEG-coated Au NPs, coating them with a layer of organically modified silica and removing the PEG around the Au NPs. The structure of these encapsulated NPs was characterized by TEM, SEM, XRD, FTIR, EDX, TGA, and ICP-OES. These NPs have shown excellent activities in the aerobic oxidation of benzyl alcohol derivatives and tandem oxidative A3 coupling reactions as a catalyst and reactor in the water at room temperature.