(172g) Studying Sub Nano-Meter Ensemble Effects on Selective Hydrogenation Utilizing the ?-Brass Phase Crystal Structure
AIChE Annual Meeting
2018
2018 AIChE Annual Meeting
Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division
Rational Catalyst Design II
Monday, October 29, 2018 - 2:30pm to 2:50pm
In this presentation, we will demonstrate the Pd-Zn γ-brass phase is a model system to test active-site nuclearity effects. This crystal structure has a complex 52 atom unit cell with four symmetrically inequivalent positions: inner tetrahedral (IT), outer tetrahedral (OT), octahedral (OH) and cuboctahedral (CO) sites. Rietveld refinement of XRD patterns and probe reactions (H2-D2 exchange, ethylene hydrogenation and acetylene hydrogenation) established Pd8Zn44 (lower solubility limit of Pd) has completely isolated single-atom Pd sites (due to presence of Pd only on OT site) whereas Pd9Zn43 has one and Pd10Zn42 two Pd-Pd-Pd trimer sites per unit cell (by Zn replacement on OH site(s)), respectively. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations support the significant body of experimental evidence that trimers are exposed on the surface with increasing Pd amounts.
Apart from changing the nuclearity of Pd active-sites, we found a third metal may be easily incorporated into the Pd-Zn γ-brass phase to form Pd-M-Zn (M=Ni, Pt, Ag, Cu, Au) ternary catalysts. Rietveld refinement along with DFT calculations suggest the preferred position of M atoms is dictated by its electronic structure (i.e. Ni and Pt prefer OT site while Ag, Au, Cu prefer OH site) rather than their physical size. Introduction of a third metal can introduce chemical ensemble effects. As the morphology of the active-site is dependent on the relative site preference (and concentration) of the different metals, it depends on the specific choice of M which should in turn be selected based on the chemistry of interest. Though Pd-(M)-Zn γ-brass phase can be utilized as a model system for any Pd catalyzed chemistry, in our lab we focus on the selective acetylene semi-hydrogenation reaction in presence of excess ethylene and hydrogen (C2H2:C2H4:H2=1:30:20). We found among the Pd-Zn materials, only Pd8Zn44 (having single-atom Pd sites) is selective towards ethylene while Pd trimers unselectively hydrogenate feed ethylene to undesired ethane. We have extended our studies of selective acetylene semi-hydrogenation to Pd-M-Zn γ-brass materials to determine if the addition of M to the active site ensemble enhances selectivity even beyond single-atom Pd. In this case we primarily focus on Pd-Au-Zn and Pd-Ag-Zn because Pd-Au (3) and Pd-Ag (4) random alloy catalysts are selective to ethylene. Since these binary systems are random alloys, no structure-function relations can be determined for these systems and no experimental understanding is available regarding the intrinsic effect of Au and Ag on the Pd active-site.
References
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