Investigation of the preparation methodologies of Pd-Cu single atom alloy catalysts for selective hydrogenation of acetylene

• Published in: Frontiers of chemical science and engineering Vol. 9; no. 4; pp. 442 - 449
• Main Authors: Cao, Xinxiang, Mirjalili, Arash, Wheeler, James, Xie, Wentao, Jang, Ben W. -L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Higher Education Press 01-12-2015
• Subjects: Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering; Nanotechnology; Research Article; palladium-copper bimetallic catalyst; H; single atom alloy; HAADF-STEM; acetylene hydrogenation; pulse chemisorption
• ISSN: 2095-0179; 2095-0187
• DOI: 10.1007/s11705-015-1547-x

Galvanic replacement, co-impregnation and sequential impregnation have been employed to prepare Pd-Cu bimetallic catalysts with less than 1 wt-% Cu and ca. 0.03 wt-% Pd for selective hydrogenation of acetylene in excess ethylene. High angle annular dark field-scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF-STEM) and H
2
chemisorption results confirmed that Pd-Cu singleatom alloy structures were constructed in all three bimetallic catalysts. Catalytic tests indicated that when the conversion of acetylene was above 99%, the selectivity of ethylene of these three single atom alloy catalysts was still more than 73%. Furthermore, the single atom alloy catalyst prepared by sequential incipient wetness impregnation was found to have the best stability among the three procedures used.