A Rational Solid-State Synthesis of Supported Au-Ni Bimetallic Nanoparticles with Enhanced Activity for Gas-Phase Selective Oxidation of Alcohols.

A facile confined solid-state seed-mediated alloying strategy is applied for the rational synthesis of supported Au-Ni bimetallic nanoparticles (BMNPs). The method sequentially deposits nickel salts and AuNP seeds into the ordered array of extra-large mesopores (EP-FDU-12 support) followed by a high-temperature annealing process. The size, structure, and composition of the AuNi BMNPs can be well tuned by varying the AuNP seeds, annealing temperature, and feeding ratio of metal precursors. Kinetic studies and DFT calculations suggest that the introduction of the Ni component can significantly prompt the O2 activation on AuNPs, which is critical for the selective alcohol oxidation using molecular O2 as the oxidant. The optimal Au-Ni BMNP catalyst showed the highest turnover frequency (TOF) (59 000 h-1, 240 °C) and highest space-time yield (STY) of benzyl aldehyde (BAD) productivity (9.23 kg·gAu-1·h-1) in the gas-phase oxidation of benzyl alcohol (BA), which is at least about 5-fold higher than that of other supported Au catalysts.

Fast Optimization of LiMgMnOx/La2O3 Catalysts for the Oxidative Coupling of Methane.

The development of efficient catalyst for oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) reaction represents a grand challenge in direct conversion of methane into other useful products. Here, we reported that a newly developed combinatorial approach can be used for ultrafast optimization of La2O3-based multicomponent metal oxide catalysts in OCM reaction. This new approach integrated inkjet printing assisted synthesis (IJP-A) with multidimensional group testing strategy (m-GT) tactfully takes the place of conventionally high-throughput synthesis-and-screen experiment. Just within a week, 2048 formulated LiMgMnOx-La2O3 catalysts in a 64·8·8·8·8 = 262 144 compositional space were fabricated by IJP-A in a four-round synthesis-and-screen process, and an optimized formulation has been successfully identified through only 4·8 = 32 times of tests via m-GT screening strategy. The screening process identifies the most promising ternary composition region is Li0-0.48Mg0-6.54Mn0-0.62-La100Ox with an external C2 yield of 10.87% at 700 °C. The yield of C2 is two times as high as the pure nano-La2O3. The good performance of the optimized catalyst formulation has been validated by the manual preparation, which further prove the effectiveness of the new combinatorial methodology in fast discovery of heterogeneous catalyst.

Mix and print: fast optimization of mesoporous CuCeZrO(w) for catalytic oxidation of n-hexane.

Fast optimization of mesoporous ternary metal oxide (CuCeZrO(w)) catalysts for n-hexane oxidation is achieved via a newly developed combinatorial approach based on ink-jet printing assisted synthesis and multi-dimensional group testing.

Sub-10 nm Au-Pt-Pd alloy trimetallic nanoparticles with a high oxidation-resistant property as efficient and durable VOC oxidation catalysts.

Sub-10 nm AuPtPd alloy trimetallic nanoparticles (TMNPs) with a high oxidation-resistant property were prepared by photo-deposition followed by a high temperature (700-900 °C) air annealing process.

Radical-involved photosynthesis of AuCN oligomers from Au nanoparticles and acetonitrile.

We show here the first radical route for the direct photosynthesis of AuCN oligomers with different sizes and shapes, as evidenced by TEM observations, from an Au nanoparticle/benzaldehyde/CH(3)CN ternary system in air under UV-light irradiation. This photochemical route is green, mild, and universal, which makes itself distinguishable from the common cyanidation process. Several elementary reaction steps, including the strong C-C bond dissociation of CH(3)CN and subsequent •CN radical addition to Au, have been suggested to be critical in the formation of AuCN oligomers based on the identification of •CN radical by in situ EPR and the radical trapping technique, and other reaction products by GC-MS and (1)H NMR, and DFT calculations. The resulting solid-state AuCN oligomers exhibit unique spectroscopic characters that may be a result of the shorter Au-Au distances (namely, aurophilicity) and/or special polymer-like structures as compared with gold cyanide derivatives in the aqueous phase. The nanosized AuCN oligomers supported on mesoporous silica showed relatively good catalytic activity on the homogeneous annulation of salicylaldehyde with phenylacetylene to afford isoflavanones employing PBu(3) as the cocatalyst under moderate conditions, which also serves as evidence for the successful production of AuCN oligomers.