Abstract:
The goal of this project was to covalently modify silica particles of sub-micrometer dimensions using aromatic amines. Thus, the previously unknown redox-active organic molecule 4'-amino-3',5'-di-tert-butyl-1,1'-biphenyl-4-carboxylic acid was linked to the surface of spherical, monodisperse and non-porous silica particles, which served as the carrier material. The particles were synthesized according to the Stöber-Process, and were characterized by means of SEM-, light scattering and BET-measurements. An important criterion for the synthesis of the particles was to provide binding sites as uniform as possible for the redox-active compound (non-porous material). The silica particles were synthesized with a diameter as small as possible in order to obtain a large area of effective surface per gram particles. First, the particles were coated with the spacer 3-aminopropyl-triethoxysilane. Having a terminal amino group, it was then possible to bind the redox-active aminobiphenylcarboxylic acid to the silica surface by forming an amidebond. N-(3-Dimethylaminopropyl)-N'-ethylcarbodiimide-hydrochloride was used as a coupling agent. The silica modified in this way was examined spectroscopically using 1H-suspension-NMR and 13C-solid-state-NMR, and electrochemically using cyclic voltammetry (CV). The CV-measurement showed spontaneous adsorption of the modified particles on the platinum electrode. In addition, it could be shown that the particles coated with the redox-active centers can be oxidized via two chemically reversible electron transfers.
Thus, the modified silica material might fulfill important criteria of an effective catalyst (mediator): due to employing insoluble silica gel as a carrier it should be easily removable from the reaction mixture. Additionally, it can be expected to be electrochemically regenerative in a simple way because of the reversible electron transfers.