Controllable silver embedding into polypyrrole

Abstract Eccentric encapsulation of silver by polypyrrole was realized via the direct redox reaction between AgNO 3 and pyrrole in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate. A facile method based on the relative amount of the Ag embedded in the normalized PPy sphere was developed and utilized to compare the interface tension between Ag, PPy and the solution. Via the aid of the embedding ratio, the formation of the eccentric silver@polypyrrole (Ag@PPy) was investigated by a temporal process and tuning the surfactant concentration and reaction temperature. Furthermore, such a unique nanostructure allowed the manipulation on the Ag end to achieve mushroom-like Au/Ag-PPy via the galvanic replacement reaction between Ag and HAuCl 4 , which was also dependent on the embedding ratio. After generating the above later nanostructure, much more active sites were available and much better catalytic activity was achieved taking the reduction of 4-nitrophenol by NaBH 4 as an example reaction.