Preparation of reduced graphene oxide nanosheet/glutathione-Pd hydrogel with enhanced catalytic activity

In this manuscript, we have prepared reduced graphene oxide nanosheet/glutathione-Pd (rGS/G-Pd) hydrogel with the help of glutathione by a hydrothermal method. During the synthesis, glutathione not only improved cross-linking of hydrogel via reacting with functional groups on graphene oxide nanosheet (GS) surface; but also deeply reduced GS to improve the conductivity. Additionally, the diameter of Pd nanoparticles (NPs) was decreased to 1.7 nm by taking advantage of synergistic effect between glutathione and Pd^{2 +} ions. The final hydrogel displayed three-dimensional hierarchical porous structure with ultra-small Pd NPs uniformly decorated on the surface. In heterogeneous catalytic reaction, the rGS/G-Pd hydrogel showed superior catalytic performance towards the counterparts synthesized without glutathione, indicating it was a suitable candidate for catalyst.