Au-Pd nanoparticles immobilized on TiO2 nanosheet as an active and durable catalyst for solvent-free selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol

Zhe Wang; Jiangjiang Feng; Xiaoliang Li; Rena Oh; Dongdong Shi; Ouardia Akdim; Ming Xia; Liang Zhao; Xiaoyang Huang; Guojie Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2020.11.112

Au-Pd nanoparticles immobilized on TiO₂ nanosheet as an active and durable catalyst for solvent-free selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2021 Apr 15:588:787-794. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.11.112. Epub 2020 Nov 30.

Authors

Zhe Wang¹, Jiangjiang Feng¹, Xiaoliang Li², Rena Oh³, Dongdong Shi¹, Ouardia Akdim⁴, Ming Xia⁵, Liang Zhao⁴, Xiaoyang Huang⁶, Guojie Zhang⁷

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Coal Science and Technology Co-founded by Shanxi Province and the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, Shanxi, PR China.
² State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Coal Science and Technology Co-founded by Shanxi Province and the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, Shanxi, PR China. Electronic address: lixiaoliang@tyut.edu.cn.
³ Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, South Korea.
⁴ Cardiff Catalysis Institute, Centre for Doctoral Training in Catalysis, School of Chemistry, Cardiff University, Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3AT, United Kingdom.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Taiyuan 030001, Shanxi, PR China.
⁶ Cardiff Catalysis Institute, Centre for Doctoral Training in Catalysis, School of Chemistry, Cardiff University, Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3AT, United Kingdom. Electronic address: HuangX17@cardiff.ac.uk.
⁷ State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Coal Science and Technology Co-founded by Shanxi Province and the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, Shanxi, PR China. Electronic address: zhangguojie@tyut.edu.cn.

PMID: 33309148
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.11.112

Abstract

TiO₂nanocrystals with controlled facets have been extensively investigated due to their excellent photocatalytic performance in sustainable and green energy field. However, the applications in thermal catalysis without applying UV irradiation are comparably less and the identification of their intrinsic roles, especially the different catalytic behaviors of each crystal facet, remains not fully recognized. In this study, bimetallic AuPd nanoparticles supported on anatase TiO₂ nanosheets exposing {001} facets or TiO₂ nanospindles exposing {101} as a catalyst were prepared by sol-immobilization method and used for solvent-free benzyl alcohol oxidation. The experimental results indicated that the exposed facet of the support has a significant effect on the catalytic performance. AuPd/TiO₂-001 catalyst exhibited a higher benzyl alcohol conversion than that of the AuPd/TiO₂-101. Meanwhile, all the prepared AuPd/TiO₂ catalysts were characterized by XRD, ICP-AES, XPS, BET, TEM, and HRTEM. The results revealed that the higher number of oxygen vacancies in TiO₂-sheets with the exposed {001} facets of higher surface energy could be responsible for the observed enhancement in the catalytic performance of benzyl alcohol oxidation. The present study displays that it is plausible to enhance the catalytic performance for the benzyl alcohol oxidation by tailoring the exposed facet of the TiO₂ as a catalyst support.

Keywords: AuPd NPs; Benzyl alcohol oxidation; Crystal facet engineering; Solvent-free; TiO(2).