Compositional variations in highly active PtSn/Al2O3 catalysts derived from molecular complexes

Compositional variations in highly active PtSn/Al2O3 catalysts derived from molecular complexes

Applied Catalysis B: Environmental

10.1016/j.apcatb.2023.123285

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2023.123285

Chaokai Xu, Shengdong Tan, Yaxin Tang, Shibo Xi, Bingqing Yao, Austin Wade, Binbin Zhao, Shangchen Lu, Yankun Du, Mingjiao Tian, Chi He, Lu Ma, Xingjie Fu, Jiwei Shi, Jiong Lu, Alexander G.R. Howe, Sheng Dai, Guangfu Luo, Qian He

16 September 2023

Xu, C., Tan, S., Tang, Y., Xi, S., Yao, B., Wade, A., Zhao, B., Lu, S., Du, Y., Tian, M., He, C., Ma, L., Fu, X., Shi, J., Lu, J., Howe, A. G. R., Dai, S., Luo, G., & He, Q. (2024). Compositional variations in highly active PtSn/Al2O3 catalysts derived from molecular complexes. Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, 341, 123285. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2023.123285

We investigated the industrially important PtSn/Al2O3 catalysts prepared with uniform particle sizes (∼ 1 nm) and varied compositions using molecular complexes of Pt(II) and Sn(II). Our best catalyst, with a Sn:Pt ratio of around 2, exhibited a high initial propylene productivity of about 1.1 mol C3H6 (g catalyst)−1 h−1. Elaborate electron microscopy studies revealed significant compositional variations in the catalyst, highlighting the practical challenges in achieving or confirming the theoretically predicted optimum Sn:Pt ratio. It is also found that the catalytic activities correlate well with the Pt dispersion, suggesting the structure-insensitive nature of the dehydrogenation reaction applies to these ultrasmall Pt-Sn nanoparticles. The presence of Pt-rich particles in the catalysts did not produce noticeable degradations in the reaction selectivity, indicating a wide composition range for Pt-Sn nanoparticles to be effective at the 1 nm size range. These findings emphasize the importance of detailed analysis of compositional distributions for understanding and optimizing nanoalloys.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

This research / project is supported by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) - Low Carbon Energy Research Finding Initiative (LCERFI01-0033 | U2102d2006)
Grant Reference no. : U2102d2006

https://oar.a-star.edu.sg/communities-collections/articles/22702

0926-3373

Institute of Sustainability for Chemicals, Energy and Environment