Synthesis and catalytic activity of core-shell gold-palladium nanoworms towards the catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol and methyl orange

The Au-Pd core-shell nanostructures have gained attention as a promising catalyst and exhibit outstanding stability and selectivity in pivotal chemical reactions. This work demonstrates a facile seed-mediated approach for depositing the shell of Pd on worm-shaped Au nanostructures. The control over Pd content on Au nanoworms (NWs) was achieved by adjusting the concentration of tetrachloropalladic acid (H2PdCl4) in the deposition solution. The bent morphology, surface roughness, and polycrystalline structure of the Au NWs ensured that at lower H2PdCl4 concentrations, Pd formed an island-like structure on the Au NWs' surface. In contrast, increasing the H2PdCl4 concentration led to the formation of a complete Pd shell encasing the Au NWs. The catalytic activity of the Au-Pd core-shell (Pd@Au) NWs exhibited a significant improvement compared to uncoated Au NWs, which has been attributed to the synergetic effect of the two metals. However, it was observed that an optimum Pd-coating was necessary to obtain the best catalytic performance and a further increase in Pd content led to the degradation of the catalytic activity. Specifically, the rate constant of the reduction reactions of 4-nitrophenol (4NP) and methyl orange (MO) was increased by 6.3 and 3.1 folds, respectively, for the optimized Pd@Au NWs.