Ultrafine palladium nanoparticles anchored on NH_2-functionalized reduced graphene oxide as efficient catalyst towards formic acid dehydrogenation

摘要

The development of active and stable catalyst is of significance for hydrogen generation from formic acid. Herein, a novel palladium catalyst with ultrafine metallic nanoparticles anchored on NH2-functionalized reduced graphene oxide (NH2-rGO) was synthesized by a facile wet chemical reduction process using sodium borohydride as the reducing agent. The TEM and XPS characterization results confirmed the successful functionalization of rGO with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), which plays a very important role in evenly dispersing ultrafine Pd nanoparticles with a small average size of about 2.3 nm. As a result, the as-prepared Pd/NH2-rGO catalyst exhibited excellent activity with a high initial turnover frequency of 767 h(-1) and 100% hydrogen selectivity, which was predominant among the currently available pure Pd catalysts towards formic acid dehydrogenation under room temperature. (C) 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.