Facile synthesis and excellent catalytic activity of gold nanoparticles on graphene oxide

For the first time,Au nanoparticles on graphene oxide (GO-AuNPs) were successfully fabricated without applying any additional reductants,just by the redox reaction between AuCl4-1 and GO.Their structure was characterized by transmission electron microscopy and X-ray powder diffraction.The results show that flower-like AuNPs were successfully dispersed on GO surface.Importantly,they showed a high catalytic activity for the Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reaction in an aqueous medium.