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Promising pure gold aerogel: in situ preparation by composite sol–gel and application in catalytic removal of pollutants and SERS

  • Original Paper: sol–gel and hybrid materials for catalytic, photoelectrochemical and sensor applications
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Abstract

In this work, a new preparation method of highly pure gold aerogel using cellulose triacetate as a template was developed. Gold aerogel with high-purity, low density, and elevated specific surface area was successfully prepared by the proposed fast and simple method as a typical example of noble metal aerogels. In this process, the ligament, crystal grain size, and specific surface area of the product could be controlled by adjusting the concentration of the reducing agent. After complete removal of the template, the obtained gold aerogel with 99% purity showed a moderate catalytic effect toward organic pollutants but with great modification potential. The Raman intensity of pure gold aerogel was 3.2-fold higher than that of the conventional porous gold substrate. The excellent effect of the as-prepared nanogold aerogel was attributed to its enhanced surface plasmon resonance effect induced from high purity. In sum, these findings look promising for future application of high-purity gold aerogels in many fields.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Project of State Key Laboratory of Environment-Friendly Energy Materials of Southwest University of Science and Technology (Grants. 18fksy0203 and 19fksy08), the Open Research Fund Program of Science and Technology on Aerospace Chemical Power Laboratory (Grant. SCTAPL12018B05-1), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants. 21975066 and 21875061). We thank MogoEdit for its linguistic assistance during the preparation of this manuscript. We also thank Jiayi Zhu for the discussion to this work.

Author contribution

YX: data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, resources, software, writing - original draft. CW: conceptualization, supervision, validation, visualization. KL: writing—review & editing, data curation, methodology, software. ZL and MZ: formal analysis, investigation, project administration. LW: grammar checking, writing—review & editing. YY: funding acquisition, supervision, resources, validation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Environmentally Friendly Energy Materials, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang, 621010, China

    Yuwei Xiao, Kui Liu, Zhihui Luo, Min Zeng & Yong Yi

  2. Research Center of Laser Fusion, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Mianyang, 621900, China

    Yuwei Xiao, Chaoyang Wang, Zhihui Luo & Min Zeng

  3. College of Foreign Languages, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, 610000, China

    Lingyu Wei

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  1. Yuwei Xiao
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Correspondence to Yong Yi.

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Xiao, Y., Wang, C., Liu, K. et al. Promising pure gold aerogel: in situ preparation by composite sol–gel and application in catalytic removal of pollutants and SERS. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 99, 614–626 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-021-05597-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-021-05597-9

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