Stability of Colloidal Iron Oxide Nanoparticles on Titania and Silica Support.

Using model catalysts with well-defined particle sizes and morphologies to elucidate questions regarding catalytic activity and stability has gained more interest, particularly utilizing colloidally prepared metal(oxide) particles. Here, colloidally synthesized iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe x O y -NPs, size ∼7 nm) on either a titania (Fe x O y /TiO2) or a silica (Fe x O y /SiO2) support were studied. These model catalyst systems showed excellent activity in the Fischer-Tropsch to olefin (FTO) reaction at high pressure. However, the Fe x O y /TiO2 catalyst deactivated more than the Fe x O y /SiO2 catalyst. After analyzing the used catalysts, it was evident that the Fe x O y -NP on titania had grown to 48 nm, while the Fe x O y -NP on silica was still 7 nm in size. STEM-EDX revealed that the growth of Fe x O y /TiO2 originated mainly from the hydrogen reduction step and only to a limited extent from catalysis. Quantitative STEM-EDX measurements indicated that at a reduction temperature of 350 °C, 80% of the initial iron had dispersed over and into the titania as iron species below imaging resolution. The Fe/Ti surface atomic ratios from XPS measurements indicated that the iron particles first spread over the support after a reduction temperature of 300 °C followed by iron oxide particle growth at 350 °C. Mössbauer spectroscopy showed that 70% of iron was present as Fe2+, specifically as amorphous iron titanates (FeTiO3), after reduction at 350 °C. The growth of iron nanoparticles on titania is hypothesized as an Ostwald ripening process where Fe2+ species diffuse over and through the titania support. Presynthesized nanoparticles on SiO2 displayed structural stability, as only ∼10% iron silicates were formed and particles kept the same size during in situ reduction, carburization, and FTO catalysis.

Supported cobalt catalysts for the selective hydrogenation of ethyl levulinate to various chemicals.

A highly active and selective cobalt catalyst was developed for the hydrogenation of biomass-derived ethyl levulinate (EL) to γ-valerolactone (GVL), ethyl 4-hydroxypentanoate (EHP), 1,4-pentanediol (1,4-PDO) and 2-methyltetrahydrofuran (2-MTHF), which are considered to be value-added chemicals and important biofuels. The effects of reaction time, reaction temperature, catalyst amount and solvent on its catalytic performance were investigated. In addition, the reaction pathway was studied as well. It was found that the selectivity of GVL, 1,4-PDO and 2-MTHF on Co/ZrO2 can be easily tuned by changing reaction conditions, and can reach as high as 94%, 78% and 77%, respectively. The product selectivity is also significantly affected by the catalyst support. With SBA-15 as the support, the selectivity of EHP can reach 90%. Moreover, Co/ZrO2 gave an extraordinarily high GVL productivity of 1.50 mol gmetal -1 h-1 and displayed excellent stability and reusability. Interestingly, coke has a positive effect on the enhancement of GVL yield. AL dimers and trimers were identified as the coke species in the hydrogenation of EL. As far as we know, this is the first work conducting the flexible transformation of EL on cobalt catalysts.