A green bioreductive approach with Cacumen Platycladi (CP) extract was adopted to fabricate bimetallic Au− Pd/TiO 2 catalysts for solvent-free oxidation of benzyl alcohol (BzOH) to benzaldehyde (BzH) with molar oxygen at atmospheric pressure. The Au−Pd nanoparticles (NPs) before being immobilized onto TiO 2 were determined by transmission electron microscopy. And, the catalysts were further analyzed by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, etc. Effects of Au/Pd molar ratio, preparation conditions, and reaction conditions on the catalytic activity of Au− Pd/TiO 2 were investigated. And, the Au−Pd/TiO 2 catalyst without calcination that was prepared at 90 °C from the Au−Pd NPs with Au/Pd molar ratio of 2:1 exhibited excellent catalytic performance. With the catalyst, BzOH conversion of 74.2% and selectivity to BzH 95.8% were attained at the reaction temperature of 90 °C with an oxygen flow rate of 90 mL/min. Meanwhile, the recycling tests showed that, after seven recycles, the catalyst still remained with high conversion and selectivity. Therefore, the catalyst had excellent durability and reusability and good prospects for industrial application.

40 nm flower-shaped Au-Pd bimetallic nanoparticles were prepared in a facile and eco-friendly way based on the simultaneous bioreduction of HAuCl 4 and Na 2 PdCl 4 with ascorbic acid and CacumenPlatycladi leaf extract at room temperature. Characterization techniques, such as transmission electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction, were employed to confirm that the as-synthesized nanoparticles were alloys. The obtained flower-shaped Au-Pd alloy nanoparticles exhibited an excellent surface enhanced Raman spectroscopic activity with rhodamine 6G and efficient catalytic ability for the oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde.

A series of Au/TiO2 catalysts for CO oxidation with same Au loading but different Au nanoparticles (NPs) sizes were prepared by varying the calcination temperatures and biomass concentration via a biosynthetic approach. The resulting catalysts were characterized by DRUV–vis, TEM, and TG techniques. The experimental results showed that the activity of the gold catalysts for CO oxidation was very sensitive to the particle size. Among the tested catalysts, the one with mean size of 3.8 nm was the most active. As determined by TEM, the contact boundary between the Au NPs and the TiO2 support was related to the size of the Au NPs. For the most active catalyst, hemispherical Au NPs (3.8 ± 0.6 nm) had the best contact boundary with the TiO2 support, yielding the longest perimeter interface, suggesting that the contact boundary was the most critical factor for the CO oxidation. The in-situ FTIR study of CO adsorption on the catalysts showed that CO was not adsorbed on the Au surface. This might be due to the modification of the Au/TiO2 catalysts by the residual biomass. The intensity of the peak at 2185 cm–1 for the Au/TiO2 catalysts with the longest perimeter interface was highest, demonstrating that the Au–TiO2 contact boundary played an important role in the adsorption of CO.

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Closely packed, size-controllable and stable Au nanohorns (AuNHs) that are difficult to synthesize through pure chemical reduction are facilely synthesized using a microorganism-mediated method in the presence of hexadecyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTAC). The results showed that the size of the as-synthesized AuNHs could be tuned by adjusting the dosage of the Pichia pastoris cells (PPCs). The initial concentrations of CTAC, ascorbic acid (AA) and tetrachloroaurate trihydrate (HAuCl4·3H2O) significantly affected the formation of the AuNHs. Increasing the diameters of AuNHs led to a red shift of the absorbance bands around 700 nm in their UV-vis-NIR spectra. Interestingly, the AuNH/PPC composites exhibited excellent Raman enhancement such that rhodamine 6G with concentration as low as (10(-9) M) could be effectively detected. The formation process of the AuNHs involved the initial binding of the Au ions onto the PPCs with subsequent reduction by AA to form supported Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) based on preferential nucleation and initial anisotropic growth on the platform of the PPCs. The anisotropic growth of these AuNPs, which was influenced by CTAC and PPCs, resulted in the formation of growing AuNHs, while the secondary nucleation beyond the PPCs produced small AuNPs that were subsequently consumed through Ostwald ripening during the aging of the AuNHs. This work exemplifies the fabrication of novel gold nanostructures and stable bio-Au nanocomposites with excellent optical properties by combining microorganisms and a surfactant.