Facile synthesis of titania/hyperbranched polyglycidol nanohybrids with controllable morphologies: from solid spheres, capsules to tubes

Titania/Hyperbranched polyglycidol (HBP) nanohybrids with tunable morphologies have been synthesized via a sol-gel process at ambient temperature. One-shot addition of varied amounts of titanium precursor tetraisopropoxide (TTIP) yields spherical titania/HBP solid particles with tunable size, while a controlled addition of TTIP results in spherical titania/HBP capsules. The average outer and inner diameters of the resultant capsules are also controllable according to the amount of TTIP via an Oswald ripening process. In addition, the modality of additional water supplied in the reaction systems can tune the morphologies of the resulting titania/HBP particles from nanocapsules to nanotubes owing to the accelerated hydrolysis rate of TTIP. The tunability in morphologies of the titania/HBP nanostructures ranging from solid spheres, capsules to tubes could be attributed to the self-assembly of a large amount of titania/HBP aggregates in a rapid, controlled and anisotropic manner, respectively. Surprisingly, by means of HBP contained in the resulting titania/ HBP nanostructures, the gold nanoparticles are in situ generated and encapsulated into titania/HBP matrix in the absence of additional reducing agent. The as- prepared gold nanoparticles functionalized titania/HBP hybrids exhibit excellent catalytic function toward the reduction of 4-nitrophenol. This strategy demonstrates a typical example for functionalizing the titania/HBP hybrids targeted to specific applications.