Abstract
Encapsulation behavior, as well as the presence of internal catalytically active sites, has been spurring the applications of a 3 nm hollow spherical metal oxide cluster {Mo132} as an encapsulation host and a nanoreactor. Due to its well-defined and tunable cluster structures, and nanoscaled internal void space comparable to the volumes of small molecules, this cluster provides a good model to study the dynamics of materials under nanoconfinement. Neutron scattering studies suggest that bulky internal ligands inside the cluster show slower and limited dynamics compared to their counterparts in the bulk state, revealing the rigid nature of the skeleton of the internal ligands. NMR studies indicate that the rigid internal ligands that partially cover the interfacial pore on the molybdenum oxide shells are able to block some large guest molecules from going inside the capsule cluster, which provides a convincing protocol for size-selective encapsulation and separation.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 14131-14136 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Chemistry - A European Journal |
Volume | 22 |
Issue number | 40 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2016 |
Funding
P.Y. is grateful for the support of a Clifford G. Shull Fellowship from Neutron Sciences Directorate of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The research performed in BL-2 (BASIS) and BL-16B (VISION) at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source was sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy. The sample preparation and NMR studies were conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.
Keywords
- confinement
- dynamics
- encapsulation
- neutron scattering
- polyoxometaltes