Design of Pd{111}-TiO_2 interface for enhanced catalytic efficiency towards formic acid decomposition

Supports are commonly implemented in the industrial application of heterogeneous catalysts to improve the stability and recyclability of catalysts.The supported catalysts often show the enhanced activity and selectivity in various catalytic reactions.However,the specific contributions of electronic and steric effects to a catalytic system often remain elusive due to the lack of well-defined model systems.In this work,two types of uniform Pd nanocrystals covered by{111}facets in tetrahedral and octahedral shapes,respectively,are synthesized with identical chemical environment and loaded on Ti O_2supports to form hybrid structures(Pd{111}-Ti O_2)towards the application of formic acid decomposition.Our observation suggests that the polarization effect at the interface of Pd-Ti O_2enhances its activity in formic acid decomposition.Moreover,the Pd tetrahedrons-Ti O_2hybrid structure whose Pd{111}-Ti O_2interface possesses a larger angle shows higher catalytic activity,owing to the reduced steric effect as compared to Pd octahedrons-Ti O_2.This study reveals the nature of interface effects in formic acid decomposition,and provides a guidance for the related catalyst design.

Tandem nanocatalyst design: putting two step-reaction sites into one location towards enhanced hydrogen transfer reactions

Efficient tandem reactions on a single catalytic nanostructure would be beneficial to improving chemical transformation efficiency and reducing safety implications. It is imperative to identify the active sites for each single step reaction so that the entire reaction process can be optimized by designing and integrating the sites. Herein, hydrogen transfer reaction is taken as a proof-of-concept demonstration to show that the spatial integration of active sites is important to the catalytic efficiency of the entire process in tandem reactions. We identified specific active sites (i.e., various sites at faces versus corners and edges) for formic acid decomposition and alkene/nitrobenzene hydrogenation-the two steps in hydrogen transfer reactions, by employing three different shapes of Pd nanocrystals in tunable sizes. The investigation reveals that the decomposition of formic acid occurs preferentially at the edge sites of cubic nanocrystal and the plane sites of octahedral/ tetrahedral nanocrystals, while the hydrogenation takes place mainly at the edge sites of both cubic and octahedral/ tetrahedral nanocrystals. The consistency of active edge sites during different step reactions enables cubic nanocrystals to exhibit a higher activity than octahedral nanocrystals in hydrogen transfer reactions, although octahedrons offer comparable activities to cubes in formic acid decomposition and hydrogenation reactions. Guided by these findings, we further improved the overall performance of tandem catalysis by specifically promoting the limiting step through nanocatalyst design. This work provides insights into the rational design of heterogeneous nanocatalysts in tandem reactions.