One-pot fabrication of yolk–shell nanospheres with ultra-small Au nanoparticles for catalysis

We report a "one-pot" method for the direct synthesis of an organosilica shell/silica core nanoreactor confined with ultra-small metal (Au, Pd, and Ru) nanoparticles. The nano-reactor confined with Au nanoparticles showed high activity towards styrene oxidation using O2 as the oxidant under 1 atm pressure and could be stably recycled without deterioration of both conversion and selectivity. The strategy could be adapted onto other nanostructures with little modification to obtain yolk-shell nanoreactors for catalysis application.