CO2 Hydrogenation: Na Doping Promotes CO and Hydrocarbon Formation over Ru/m-ZrO2 at Elevated Pressures in Gas Phase Media.

Sodium-promoted monoclinic zirconia supported ruthenium catalysts were tested for CO2 hydrogenation at 20 bar and a H2:CO2 ratio of 3:1. Although increasing sodium promotion, from 2.5% to 5% by weight, slightly decreased CO2 conversion (14% to 10%), it doubled the selectivity to both CO (~36% to ~71%) and chain growth products (~4% to ~8%) remarkably and reduced the methane selectivity by two-thirds (~60% to ~21%). For CO2 hydrogenation during in situ DRIFTS under atmospheric pressure, it was revealed that Na increases the catalyst basicity and suppresses the reactivity of Ru sites. Higher basicity facilitates CO2 adsorption, weakens the C-H bond of the formate intermediate promoting CO formation, and inhibits methanation occurring on ruthenium nanoparticle surfaces. The suppression of excessive hydrogenation increases the chain growth probability. Decelerated reduction during H2-TPR/TPR-MS and H2-TPR-EXAFS/XANES at the K-edge of ruthenium indicates that sodium is in contact with ruthenium. A comparison of the XANES spectra of unpromoted and Na-promoted catalysts after H2 reduction showed no evidence of a promoting effect involving electron charge transfer.

Promoting the Selectivity of Pt/m-ZrO2 Ethanol Steam Reforming Catalysts with K and Rb Dopants.

The ethanol steam reforming reaction (ESR) was investigated on unpromoted and potassium- and rubidium-promoted monoclinic zirconia-supported platinum (Pt/m-ZrO2) catalysts. Evidence from in situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) characterization indicates that ethanol dissociates to ethoxy species, which undergo oxidative dehydrogenation to acetate followed by acetate decomposition. The acetate decomposition pathway depends on catalyst composition. The decarboxylation pathway tends to produce higher overall hydrogen selectivity and is the most favored route at high alkali loading (2.55 wt.% K and higher or 4.25 wt.% Rb and higher). On the other hand, decarbonylation is a significant route for the undoped catalyst or when a low alkali loading (e.g., 0.85% K or 0.93% Rb) is used, thus lowering the overall H2 selectivity of the process. Results of in situ DRIFTS and the temperature-programmed reaction of ESR show that alkali doping promotes forward acetate decomposition while exposed metallic sites tend to facilitate decarbonylation. In previous work, 1.8 wt.% Na was found to hinder decarbonylation completely. Due to the fact that 1.8 wt.% Na is atomically equivalent to 3.1 wt.% K and 6.7 wt.% Rb, the results show that less K (2.55% K) or Rb (4.25% Rb) is needed to suppress decarbonylation; that is, more basic cations are more efficient promoters for improving the overall hydrogen selectivity of the ESR process.

From Dose to Response: In Vivo Nanoparticle Processing and Potential Toxicity.

Adverse human health impacts due to occupational and environmental exposures to manufactured nanoparticles are of concern and pose a potential threat to the continued industrial use and integration of nanomaterials into commercial products. This chapter addresses the inter-relationship between dose and response and will elucidate on how the dynamic chemical and physical transformation and breakdown of the nanoparticles at the cellular and subcellular levels can lead to the in vivo formation of new reaction products. The dose-response relationship is complicated by the continuous physicochemical transformations in the nanoparticles induced by the dynamics of the biological system, where dose, bio-processing, and response are related in a non-linear manner. Nanoscale alterations are monitored using high-resolution imaging combined with in situ elemental analysis and emphasis is placed on the importance of the precision of characterization. The result is an in-depth understanding of the starting particles, the particle transformation in a biological environment, and the physiological response.

Mixed-phase oxide catalyst based on Mn-mullite (Sm, Gd)Mn2O5 for NO oxidation in diesel exhaust.

Oxidation of nitric oxide (NO) for subsequent efficient reduction in selective catalytic reduction or lean NO(x) trap devices continues to be a challenge in diesel engines because of the low efficiency and high cost of the currently used platinum (Pt)-based catalysts. We show that mixed-phase oxide materials based on Mn-mullite (Sm, Gd)Mn(2)O(5) are an efficient substitute for the current commercial Pt-based catalysts. Under laboratory-simulated diesel exhaust conditions, this mixed-phase oxide material was superior to Pt in terms of cost, thermal durability, and catalytic activity for NO oxidation. This oxide material is active at temperatures as low as 120°C with conversion maxima of ~45% higher than that achieved with Pt. Density functional theory and diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy provide insights into the NO-to-NO(2) reaction mechanism on catalytically active Mn-Mn sites via the intermediate nitrate species.

Ni/SiO2 promoted growth of carbon nanofibers from chlorobenzene: characterization of the active metal sites.

The temporal changes to supported Ni sites during the growth of graphitic carbon nanofibers (GCNs) via the decomposition of chlorobenzene over Ni/SiO2 at 873 K have been investigated. The reaction of chlorobenzene with hydrogen also generated benzene, via catalytic hydrodechlorination, as the principal competing reaction. Reaction selectivity was found to be time dependent with a switch from a preferential hydrodechlorination to a predominant decomposition that generated an increasingly more structured carbon product over prolonged time-on-stream. These findings are discussed in terms of Cl/catalyst interaction(s) leading to metal site restructuring, the latter manifest in a sintering and faceting of the Ni metal particles. The pressure exerted on the metal/support interface due to fiber formation was of sufficient magnitude to extract the Ni particle from the support; the occurrence of an entrapped Ni particle at the fiber tip is a feature common to the majority of GCNs with the incorporation of Ni fragments along the length of the GCN. Metal site restructuring has been probed by temperature-programmed reduction of the passivated samples, H2 chemisorption/temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) and XANES/EXAFS analyses. This restructuring serves to enhance destructive chemisorption and/or facilitate carbon diffusion to generate the resultant GCN. The nature of the carbonaceous product has been characterized by a combination of TEM-EDX, SEM, XRD and temperature-programmed oxidation (TPO).

Fischer-Tropsch synthesis: study of the promotion of Pt on the reduction property of Co/Al2O3 catalysts by in situ EXAFS of Co K and Pt LIII edges and XPS.

The addition of platinum metal to cobalt/alumina-based Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) catalysts increases both the reduction rate and, consequently, the density of active cobalt sites. Platinum also lowers the temperature of the two-step conversion of cobalt oxide to cobalt metal observed in temperature programmed reduction (TPR) as Co3O4 to CoO and CoO to Co0. The interaction of the alumina support with cobalt oxide ultimately determines the active site density of the catalyst surface. This interaction can be controlled by varying the cobalt loading and dispersion, selecting supports with differing surface areas or pore sizes, or changing the noble metal promoter. However, the active site density is observed to depend primarily on the cluster size and extent of reduction, and there is a direct relationship between site density and FTS rate. In this work, in situ extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) at the LIII edge of Pt was used to show that isolated Pt atoms interact with supported cobalt clusters without forming observable Pt--Pt bonds. K-edge EXAFS was also used to verify that the cobalt cluster size increases slightly for those systems with Pt promotion. X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES) was used to examine the remaining cobalt clusters after the first stage of TPR, and it revealed that the species were almost entirely cobalt (II) oxide. After the second stage of TPR to form cobalt metal, a residual oxide persists in the sample, and this oxide has been identified as cobalt (II) aluminate using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Sequential in situ reduction of promoted and unpromoted systems was also monitored through XPS, and Pt was seen to increase the extent of cobalt reduction by a factor of two.