Confined palladium colloids in mesoporous frameworks for carbon nanotube growth

• Published in: Journal of materials science Vol. 44; no. 24; pp. 6563 - 6570
• Main Authors: Berenguer-Murcia, Angel, Rebrov, Evgeny V., Cabaj, Maciej, Wheatley, Andrew E. H., Johnson, Brian F. G., Robertson, John, Schouten, Jaap C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 2009; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Activation; Carbon nanotubes; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Classical Mechanics; Colloids; Crystallography and Scattering Methods; Dip coatings; Hydrogen storage; Immersion coating; Materials Science; Mesostructured Materials; Nanoparticles; Nanostructure; Noble metals; Organic chemistry; Palladium; Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition; Polymer Sciences; Solid Mechanics; Spin coating; Substrates; Thickness; Thin films; Titanium; Titanium dioxide; Vacuum furnaces; TiO2 Thin Film; Titanium Substrate; Titania Film; Phenylacetylene; Mesoporous TiO2
• ISSN: 0022-2461; 1573-4803
• DOI: 10.1007/s10853-009-3629-y

Palladium colloidal nanoparticles with an average size of approximately 2.4 nm have been incorporated into mesoporous inorganic thin films following a multistep approach. This involves the deposition of mesoporous titania thin films with a thickness of 200 nm by spin-coating on titanium plates with a superhydrophilic titania outer layer and activation by calcination in a vacuum furnace at 573 K. Nanoparticles have been confined within the porous titania network by dip-coating noble metal suspensions onto these mesoporous thin films. Finally, the resulting nanoconfined systems were used as substrates for the growth of oriented carbon nanotubes (CNTs) using plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition at 923 K in order to enhance their surface area. These CNTs were tested in the hydrogenation of phenylacetylene by hydrogen in a batch reactor. The initial reaction rate observed on a CNT/TiO
2
structured catalyst was considerably higher than that on 1 wt% Pd/TiO
2
thin films.