Pt-Re/rGO bimetallic catalyst for highly selective hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde to cinnamylalcohol

In the present work, a series of Pt-based catalysts, alloyed with a second metal, i.e., Re, Sn, Er, La, and Y, and supported on activated carbon, ordered mesoporous carbon, N-doped mesoporous carbon or reduced graphene oxide(rGO), have been developed for selective hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde to cinnamylalcohol. Re and rGO were proved to be the most favorable metal dopant and catalyst support, respectively. Pt_(50) Re_(50)/rGO showed the highest cinnamylalcohol selectivity of 89% with 94% conversion of cinnamaldehyde at the reaction conditions of 120 °C, 2.0 MPaH_2 and 4 h.

Mechanistic insights into the selective hydrogenation of resorcinol to 1,3-cyclohexanedione over Pd/rGO catalyst through DFT calculation

In our previous work, graphene-supported Pd catalyst(Pd/rGO) exhibited higher activity and selectivity for the liquid phase selective hydrogenation of resorcinol to 1,3-cyclohexanedione compared with other catalysts. In the present study, further experimental and theoretical investigations were conducted to reveal the reaction mechanism and the catalytic mechanism of Pd/rGO for resorcinol hydrogenation. The effects of graphene nanosheet and the solvent on the reaction were investigated, and the pathway for resorcinol hydrogenation was proposed supported by density functional theory(DFT) calculations. The results showed that the excellent selectivity of Pd/rGO to 1,3-cyclohexanedione was attributed to the strong π–π and p–π interactions between the graphene nanosheet and the benzene ring as well as hydroxyl in resorcinol molecule, which was in agreement with our previous speculation. In weak polar aprotic solvents, solvation free energy had less impact to the π–π and p–π interactions mentioned above. In strong polar aprotic solvents and polar protic solvents,however, the influence of solvation free energy was much greater, which led to the decrease in the conversion of resorcinol and the selectivity to 1,3-cyclohexanedione.

Utilization of Whale-inspired Leading-edge Tubercles for Airfoil Noise Reduction

Numerical studies are conducted to explore the noise reduction effect of leading-edge tubercles inspired by humpback whale flippers.Large eddy simulations are performed to solve the flow field,while the acoustic analogy theory is used for noise prediction.In this paper,a baseline airfoil with a straight leading-edge and three bionic airfoils with tubercled leading-edges are simulated.The tubercles have sinusoidal profiles and the profiles are determined by the tubercle wavelength and amplitude.The tubercles used in this study have a fixed wavelength of 0.1c with three different amplitudes of 0.1c,0.15c and 0.2c,where c is the mean chord of the airfoil.The freestream velocity is set to 40 m/s and the chord based Reynolds number is 400,000.The predicted flow field and acoustic field of the baseline airfoil are compared against the experiments and good agreements are found.A considerable noise reduction level is achieved by the leading-edge tubercles and the tubercle with larger amplitude can obtain better noise reduction.The underlying flow mechanisms responsible for the noise reduction are analyzed in detail.