We have developed a method to fabricate composite material consisting of palladium nanoparticles tethered directly to high surface area, porous carbon microspheres. This approach is advantageous because metal nanoparticles have been shown to be effective catalysts, however, due to their small size, unsupported metal nanoparticles can be difficult to recover and reuse. A composite material, such as ours, allows for the isolation and reuse of the nanoparticles. Other procedures for fabricating composites call for the synthesis of nanoparticles in one step, then attaching them to a support in a second step. Our approach circumvents this second step, saving time and energy. Here we present results of the fabrication and characterization of our composite materials. To demonstrate the utility of our nanoparticles as catalysts, we employed the hydrogenation of methyl trans-cinnamate as a model system. Results of the hydrogenation reactions will also be presented.

Synthesis of activated palladium nanoparticles (PdNPs) on carbon microspheres (CMs) for use as a hydrogenation catalyst

249th National Meeting (2015)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.