Bifunctional hexagonal Ni/NiO nanostructures: influence of the core–shell phase on magnetism, electrochemical sensing of serotonin, and catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol

• DOI: 10.1039/c8na00342d
• Publication Date: 2019-01-31T11:08:45Z
• Authors: R. Manigandan; T. Dhanasekaran; A. Padmanaban; K. Giribabu; R. Suresh; V. Narayanan
• Keywords: Non-blocking I/O; Magnetism

Ni0/NiO (nickel/nickel oxide) core-shell nanostructures were synthesized through a facile combustible redox reaction. Remarkably, the hetero-phase boundary with different crystalline orientations offered dual properties, which helped in bifunctional catalysis. Presence of metallic Ni phase changed physicochemical properties and some emerging applications (magnetic optical conductivity, electrochemical sensitivity, catalytic behaviour) could be foreseen. Moreover, formation NiO layer on metal surface prevented magnetism-induced aggregation, arrested further oxidation by hindering oxygen diffusion, acted as good sorbent to enhance adsorption analyte. Hexagonal Ni/NiO manifested well-defined ferromagnetic behavior catalyst collected easily at end reduction. catalysts nanoscale had outstanding performance (reduction 4-nitrophenol 4-aminophenol) compared pure beyond reaction time ∼9 min. The estimated limit detection quantification towards sensing serotonin 0.185, 0.43 1.47 μM μA-1, respectively. These results suggest that nanostructure suitable for reduction 4-nitrophenol.