Quantification of critical particle distance for mitigating catalyst sintering

Peng Yin; Sulei Hu; Kun Qian; Zeyue Wei; Le-Le Zhang; Yue Lin; Weixin Huang; Haifeng Xiong; Wei-Xue Li; Hai-Wei Liang

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-25116-2

Quantification of critical particle distance for mitigating catalyst sintering

Nat Commun. 2021 Aug 11;12(1):4865. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-25116-2.

Authors

Peng Yin^#^{1

2}, Sulei Hu^#^{1

3}, Kun Qian^{1

3}, Zeyue Wei^{1

3}, Le-Le Zhang^{1

2}, Yue Lin⁴, Weixin Huang^{1

3}, Haifeng Xiong⁵, Wei-Xue Li^{6

7}, Hai-Wei Liang^{8

9}

Affiliations

¹ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Surface and Interface Chemistry and Energy Catalysis of Anhui Higher Education Institutes, Department of Chemical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
⁴ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. linyue@ustc.edu.cn.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
⁶ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. wxli70@ustc.edu.cn.
⁷ Key Laboratory of Surface and Interface Chemistry and Energy Catalysis of Anhui Higher Education Institutes, Department of Chemical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. wxli70@ustc.edu.cn.
⁸ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. hwliang@ustc.edu.cn.
⁹ Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. hwliang@ustc.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Supported metal nanoparticles are of universal importance in many industrial catalytic processes. Unfortunately, deactivation of supported metal catalysts via thermally induced sintering is a major concern especially for high-temperature reactions. Here, we demonstrate that the particle distance as an inherent parameter plays a pivotal role in catalyst sintering. We employ carbon black supported platinum for the model study, in which the particle distance is well controlled by changing platinum loading and carbon black supports with varied surface areas. Accordingly, we quantify a critical particle distance of platinum nanoparticles on carbon supports, over which the sintering can be mitigated greatly up to 900 °C. Based on in-situ aberration-corrected high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron and theoretical studies, we find that enlarging particle distance to over the critical distance suppress the particle coalescence, and the critical particle distance itself depends sensitively on the strength of metal-support interactions.