Nanostructured Silica/Gold-Cellulose-Bonded Amino-POSS Hybrid Composite via Sol-Gel Process and Its Properties.

It is demonstrated in this paper that silica nanoparticles coated with core/shell gold provide efficient thermal, optical, and morphological properties with respect to the cellulose-polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS) hybrid system. The one-step synthesis of a silica/gold nanocomposite is achieved with a simultaneous hydrolysis and reduction of gold chloride in the presence of formic acid, and the trimethoxysilane group acts as a silica precursor. The focus here comprises the synthesis of cellulose-POSS and silica/gold hybrid nanocomposites using the following two methods: (1) an in situ sol-gel process and (2) a polyvinyl alcohol/tetrakis (hydroxymethyl)phosphonium chloride process. Accordingly, the silica/gold core/shell nanoparticles are synthesized. The growth and attachment of the gold nanoparticles onto the functionalized surface of the silica at the nanometer scale is achieved via both the sol-gel and the tetrakis (hydroxymethyl) phosphonium chloride processes. The cellulose-POSS-silica/gold nanocomposites are characterized according to Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy, Raman, X-ray diffraction, UV, photoluminescence, SEM, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, TEM, thermogravimetric, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analyses.