Theses and Dissertations from UMD

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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Benzene Hydrogenation

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    Core/Shell and Alloy Nanoparticles of Transition Metals for Heterogeneous Catalysis: Bridging the Gap between Experiment and Theory
    (2008) Alayoglu, Selim; Eichhorn, Bryan W; Chemistry; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This thesis describes the structural and catalytic properties of the architecturally-controlled bimetallic nanoparticles (NPs) of transition metals. In this study, bimetallic nanoparticles with well-defined architectures were synthesized, characterized and evaluated toward various heterogeneous reactions. Random alloy nanoparticles were compared to the core/shell nanoparticles (M@M' NPs where M is the core metal and M' is the shell metal), which is the synthetic counterpart of the theoretically well-studied Near Surface Alloys (NSAs). Thus, the long existing experimental gap with the theory can be bridged via the systematic evaluation of such architecturally-controlled bimetallic NPs. The M@Pt (M=Ru, Rh, Ir, Pd and Au) and Ru@M' (M'=Rh and Pd) core/shell NPs of tunable core sizes and shell thicknesses, and the PtRu alloy and PtRh alloy NPs of various compositions were prepared via poly-ol reduction reactions by using sequential deposition techniques. Seed NPs for the core/shell systems were synthesized via either poly-ol or NaBH4 reduction reactions. The wet-chemical co-deposition technique was employed to synthesize the alloy NPs. The core/shell and alloy NPs were characterized by using a combination of TEM, STEM-EDS, XRD, and FT-IR and Micro Raman -CO probe experiments. Full structural analysis employing techniques such as Extended X-Ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS) and atomic Pair Distribution Function (PDF) was also performed for the 4.1 nm Ru@Pt NPs comprising of 3.0 nm cores and 1-2 MLs thick shells and the 4.4 nm Pt50Ru50 alloy NPs. Through collaborations, the nanoparticle structures were also modeled through EXAFS analyses, PDF fits, Rietveld Refinements and Debye Function simulations. The well-characterized core/shell and alloy NPs were evaluated for preferential oxidation of CO in H2 feeds (PROX). Catalytically, the core/shell NPs were superior to their alloy counterparts with similar particle sizes and identical compositions. The PROX reactivities of the M@Pt (M=Ru, Rh, Ir, Pd and Au) core/shell NPs increased in the order of Au@Pt < Pd@Pt < Ir@Pt < Rh@Pt < Ru@Pt, which is predicted by the NSA theory. Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations performed by Prof. Mavrikakis at the University of Wisconsin helped elucidate the thermo-chemistry beyond the enhanced PROX activities and the observed surface reactivity trends for the core/shell architectures. The decreased equilibrium surface coverage of CO as well as the new H2-assisted O2 dissociation pathway on the electronically-altered Pt shells were suggested to bring on the room temperature CO oxidation and the subsequent H2 activation with enhanced PROX selectivity. The surface reactivities toward PROX and benzene hydrogenation reactions of the composition series of the PtRu alloy NPs exhibited the `Volcano' behavior, which invoked the Hammer-Norskov theory. The preliminary benzene hydrogenation results on the Ru@Pt NPs system presented in this study also showed a structure dependent correlation in surface activity.