Ethanolamine-Induced Synthesis of Sesame Cake-like Cu/Ag Nanosheets with High Activity for the Reduction of p-Nitrophenol to p-Aminophenol

Precise control of the morphology of nanocrystals is vital in various fields, especially for the conductive materials and catalysts. In this work, ethanolamine (ETA)-induced synthesis of sesame cake-like Cu/Ag core–shell nanosheets (Cu/AgNSs) has been reported for the first time. It is found that the ETA molecules may play a "clip-on" role in the formation of sesame cake-like Cu/AgNSs. In the system, the lone-pair electrons of oxygen and nitrogen in ETA can not only bind to the vacant orbital of Cu element, thus promoting ETA to preferentially adsorb on the surface of copper nanosheets (CuNSs), but also make Ag+ ions tend to form silver–amine complexes, eventually resulting in the gentle reduction of Ag+ ions on the surface of CuNSs and the final formation of Ag shell layer. Moreover, the prepared sesame cake-like Cu/AgNSs exhibited excellent catalytic activity (turnover frequency, TOF = 12.05 min–1) in the reduction of p-nitrophenol to p-aminophenol when compared with the most reported silver-based catalysts.