We have developed a method to fabricate palladium nanoparticles tethered directly to a carbon support using greener synthetic methods. This approach is advantageous because metal nanoparticles have been shown to be effective as catalysts in heterogeneous catalysis. However, due to their small size, unsupported metal nanoparticles can be difficult to recover and reuse. As a result, many procedures call for synthesizing nanoparticles in one step, and attaching them to a support in a second step. Our approach circumvents this second step, saving time and energy. However, the use of coffee as a reducing agent causes an apparent reduction in the activity of the catalytic palladium. When the particles are synthesized without the addition of coffee, smaller particles are made with higher catalytic activity. It is hypothesized that the reason for this reduction in activity is interference by organic contaminants in the coffee. To demonstrate the utility of our nanoparticles as catalysts, we employed the Hydrogenation of methyl trans-cinnamate as a model system. In this study, we are investigating the effectiveness of supported palladium nanoparticles fabricated on top of porous carbon microspheres synthesized both with and without coffee.

Effects of surface contaminants on the catalytic activity of palladium nanoparticles

247th National Meeting (2014)

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