http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/cr500486u

Recent Developments in the Synthesis of Supported Catalysts

Catalysis is at the core of almost every established and emerging chemical process and also plays a central role in the quest for novel technologies for the sustainable production and conversion of energy. Particularly since the early 2000s, a great surge of interest exists in the design and application of micro- and nanometer-sized materials with hollow interiors as solid catalysts. This review provides an updated and critical survey of the ever-expanding material architectures and applications of hollow structures in all branches of catalysis, including bio-, electro-, and photocatalysis. First, the main synthesis strategies toward hollow materials are succinctly summarized, with emphasis on the (regioselective) incorporation of various types of catalytic functionalities within their different subunits. The principles underlying the scientific and technological interest in hollow materials as solid catalysts, or catalyst carriers, are then comprehensively reviewed. Aspects covered include the stabilizat...

Hollow Nano- and Microstructures as Catalysts

Supported metal nanoparticles play a pivotal role in areas such as nanoelectronics, energy storage/conversion and as catalysts for the sustainable production of fuels and chemicals. However, the tendency of nanoparticles to grow into larger crystallites is an impediment for stable performance. Exemplarily, loss of active surface area by metal particle growth is a major cause of deactivation for supported catalysts. In specific cases particle growth might be mitigated by tuning the properties of individual nanoparticles, such as size, composition and interaction with the support. Here we present an alternative strategy based on control over collective properties, revealing the pronounced impact of the three-dimensional nanospatial distribution of metal particles on catalyst stability. We employ silica-supported copper nanoparticles as catalysts for methanol synthesis as a showcase. Achieving near-maximum interparticle spacings, as accessed quantitatively by electron tomography, slows down deactivation up to an order of magnitude compared with a catalyst with a non-uniform nanoparticle distribution, or a reference Cu/ZnO/Al(2)O(3) catalyst. Our approach paves the way towards the rational design of practically relevant catalysts and other nanomaterials with enhanced stability and functionality, for applications such as sensors, gas storage, batteries and solar fuel production.

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Towards stable catalysts by controlling collective properties of supported metal nanoparticles

The development of base metal catalysts for the synthesis of pharmaceutically relevant compounds remains an important goal of chemical research. Here, we report that cobalt nanoparticles encapsulated by a graphitic shell are broadly effective reductive amination catalysts. Their convenient and practical preparation entailed template assembly of cobalt-diamine-dicarboxylic acid metal organic frameworks on carbon and subsequent pyrolysis under inert atmosphere. The resulting stable and reusable catalysts were active for synthesis of primary, secondary, tertiary, and N-methylamines (more than 140 examples). The reaction couples easily accessible carbonyl compounds (aldehydes and ketones) with ammonia, amines, or nitro compounds, and molecular hydrogen under industrially viable and scalable conditions, offering cost-effective access to numerous amines, amino acid derivatives, and more complex drug targets.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/early/2017/09/20/science.aan6245.full.pdf

MOF-derived cobalt nanoparticles catalyze a general synthesis of amines

Whereas noble metal compounds have long been central in catalysis, Earth-abundant metal-based catalysts have in the same time remained undeveloped. Yet the efficacy of Earth-abundant metal catalysts was already shown at the very beginning of the 20th century with the Fe-catalyzed Haber–Bosch process of ammonia synthesis and later in the Fischer–Tropsch reaction. Nanoscience has revolutionized the world of catalysis since it was observed that very small Au nanoparticles (NPs) and other noble metal NPs are extraordinarily efficient. Therefore the development of Earth-abundant metals NPs is more recent, but it has appeared necessary due to their “greenness”. This review highlights catalysis by NPs of Earth-abundant transition metals that include Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, early transition metals (Ti, V, Cr, Zr, Nb and W) and their nanocomposites with emphasis on basic principles and literature reported during the last 5 years. A very large spectrum of catalytic reactions has been successfully disclosed, and catalysis has been examined for each metal starting with zero-valent metal NPs followed by oxides and other nanocomposites. The last section highlights the catalytic activities of bi- and trimetallic NPs. Indeed this later family is very promising and simultaneously benefits from increased stability, efficiency and selectivity, compared to monometallic NPs, due to synergistic substrate activation.

The recent development of efficient Earth-abundant transition-metal nanocatalysts

The proximity of nanoparticles may affect the performance, in particular the stability, of supported metal catalysts. Short interparticle distances often arise during catalyst preparation by formation of aggregates. The cause of aggregation of cobalt nanoparticles during the synthesis of highly loaded silica-supported catalysts was found to originate from the drying process after impregnation of the silica grains with an aqueous cobalt nitrate precursor. Maximal spacing of the Co3O4 nanoparticles was obtained by fluid-bed drying at 100 °C in a N2 flow. Below this temperature, redistribution of liquid occurred before and during precipitation of a solid phase, leading to aggregation of the cobalt particles. At higher temperatures, nucleation and growth of Co3O4 occurred during the drying process also giving rise to aggregation. Fischer-Tropsch catalysis performed under industrially relevant conditions for unpromoted and Pt-promoted cobalt catalysts revealed that the size of aggregates (13-80 nm) of Co particles (size ~9 nm) had little effect on activity. Large aggregates exhibited higher selectivities to long chain alkanes, possibly related to higher olefin formation with subsequent readsorption and secondary chain growth. Most importantly, larger aggregates of Co particles gave rise to extensive migration of cobalt (up to 75%) to the external surface of the macroscopic catalyst grains (38-75 μm). Although particle size did not increase inside the silica support grains, migration of cobalt to the external surface partly led to particle growth, thus causing a loss of activity. This cobalt migration over macroscopic length scales was suppressed by maximizing the distance between nanoparticles over the support. Clearly, the nanoscale distribution of particles is an important design parameter of supported catalysts in particular and functional nanomaterials in general.

Control and impact of the nanoscale distribution of supported cobalt particles used in Fischer-Tropsch catalysis.

The performance of Cu/SiO2 (commercial silica gel, SBA-15 and SBA-15 treated at 900 °C) catalysts for the hydrogenolysis of glycerol to propylene glycol is investigated with emphasis on the stability characteristics. Cu catalysts with large crystals, small monodisperse crystallites or a highly dispersed XRD amorphous copper phase were obtained after calcination in stagnant air, in a flow of NO/N2 or a flow of air, respectively. Analysis by XRD, N2O surface oxidation and TEM confirmed the variation of the Cu specific surface area by the calcination conditions and the type of silica support used. The different dispersion characteristics resulted in different activities (20–50% glycerol conversion), while all the catalysts proved to be highly selective towards propylene glycol (92–97%). Present results indicate that glycerol hydrogenolysis over Cu-based catalysts is a structure sensitive reaction as significant variations in initial TOF were observed as a function of varying Cu crystallites. It is shown here that the presence of a solvent greatly influences the intrinsic reaction rate and the nature of structure sensitivity. The deactivation behaviour of all catalysts was studied, and based on detailed characterization of the spent samples it was attributed to Cu sintering and the presence of strongly adsorbed species on the catalytic surface. The 18 wt%Cu/silica gel (air) catalyst presented only moderate deactivation (∼20%) while the catalyst supported on SBA-15 calcined at 900 °C (SBA900C) proved to be the most stable with negligible deactivation after three consecutive runs.

Synthesis and performance of highly dispersed Cu/SiO2 catalysts for the hydrogenolysis of glycerol

In order to obtain copper catalysts with high dispersions at high copper loadings, the gas flow rate and gas composition was varied during calcination of silica gel impregnated with copper nitrate to a loading of 18 wt % of copper. Analysis by X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2O chemisorption, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showed that calcination in stagnant air resulted in very large copper crystallites and a low copper surface area (12 m2·gCu–1). A moderate flow of air was sufficient to greatly enhance the copper surface area (∼90 m2·gCu–1) based on a bimodal particle size distribution of few large crystallites and a highly dispersed phase. Changing to an N2 flow resulted in similar copper surface areas compared to samples calcined in air at the same space velocity, while calcination in a 2% NO/N2 flow resulted in a relatively narrow particle size distribution peaking around 8 nm and a slightly lower copper surface area (84 m2·gCu–1). By use of SBA-15 supported samples, in situ XRD and diffuse ref...

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Copper nitrate redispersion to arrive at highly active silica-supported copper catalysts

A major cause of supported metal catalyst deactivation is particle growth by Ostwald ripening. Nickel catalysts, used in the methanation reaction, may suffer greatly from this through the formation of [Ni(CO)4]. By analyzing catalysts with various particle sizes and spatial distributions, the interparticle distance was found to have little effect on the stability, because formation and decomposition of nickel carbonyl rather than diffusion was rate limiting. Small particles (3–4 nm) were found to grow very large (20–200 nm), involving local destruction of the support, which was detrimental to the catalyst stability. However, medium sized particles (8 nm) remained confined by the pores of the support displaying enhanced stability, and an activity 3 times higher than initially small particles after 150 h. Physical modeling suggests that the higher [Ni(CO)4] supersaturation in catalysts with smaller particles enabled them to overcome the mechanical resistance of the support. Understanding the interplay of particle size and support properties related to the stability of nanoparticles offers the prospect of novel strategies to develop more stable nanostructured materials, also for applications beyond catalysis.

Peter Munnik

Papers

Recent Developments in the Synthesis of Supported Catalysts

Control and impact of the nanoscale distribution of supported cobalt particles used in Fischer-Tropsch catalysis.

Synthesis and performance of highly dispersed Cu/SiO2 catalysts for the hydrogenolysis of glycerol

Copper nitrate redispersion to arrive at highly active silica-supported copper catalysts

Nanoparticle Growth in Supported Nickel Catalysts during Methanation Reaction—Larger is Better†