(213i) Atomically Dispersed Supported Palladium Catalysts for High Performance Chemiresistive Gas Sensors

Incorporation of noble metals into chemiresistive gas sensors has been proven to be an effective strategy to enhance their sensitivity and selectivity for their use in air-quality monitoring systems. However, noble metal particles are prone to poisoning, resulting in catalyst deactivation. Furthermore, many such sensors require high operation temperatures to achieve the needed sensitivity. To overcome these issues, a strategy using atomically dispersed supported catalysts is proposed. Atomically dispersed supported catalysts (ADC) constitute a new class of materials offering the advantage of the most efficient use of metals combined with several unique properties, considerably different from their conventional nanoparticle equivalents. In this presentation, we report on the synthesis and characterization of Pd ADC supported on two support materials, namely nitrogen-doped graphene oxide (N-GO) and tin (IV) oxide (SnO₂). Our results indicate that the chemiresistive sensors fabricated using these Pd ADCs exhibit superior performance over their nanoparticle-based counterparts. Finally, we will correlate their structural and spectroscopic characterization with the observed catalytic efficiencies, and propose a response mechanism for their sensing behavior.