Highly dispersed and active Pd nanoparticles over titania support through engineering oxygen vacancies and their anchoring effect
Xuyu Wang, Xuelin Zou, Zebao Rui, Yongqing Wang, Hongbing Ji
Abstract
Abstract Rational synthesis of highly dispersed and active metal nanoparticles (NP) for application in catalysis has been a hot but challenging research topic. Herein, we report a facile strategy for dispersing and stabilizing noble metal NP in a reducible metal oxide support (e.g., TiO 2 ) through engineering oxygen vacancies and their anchoring effect. The pre‐reduction of TiO 2 support produces oxygen vacancies, and Pd NP prefer to occupy these vacancies with a strong meal‐support interaction and near metallic state. A near monatomic Pd NP distribution over anatase TiO 2 support is obtained with this strategy. Significant activity enhancement is demonstrated in both oxygen activation and formaldehyde oxidation reactions by this catalyst design method. H 2 , NaBH 4 and HCHO are suitable reducing agent for TiO 2 , the pre‐reduction catalysts by H 2 , NaBH 4 and HCHO shows highly activity for formaldehyde oxidation. Such a work demonstrates support pre‐reduction strategy is a facile way to prepare powerful supported noble metal catalysts.