Promoted Glycerol Oxidation Reaction in an Interface-Confined Hierarchically Structured Catalyst.

Chen, Zhongxin; Liu, Cuibo; Zhao, Xiaoxu; Yan, Huan; Li, Jing; Lyu, Pin; Du, Yonghua; Xi, Shibo et al. · Adv Mater · 2019

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Confined catalysis in a 2D system is of particular interest owing to the facet control of the catalysts and the anisotropic kinetics of reactants, which suppress side reactions and improve selectivity. Here, a 2D-confined system consisting of intercalated Pt nanosheets within few-layered graphene is demonstrated. The strong metal-substrate interaction between the Pt nanosheets and the graphene leads to the quasi-2D growth of Pt with a unique (100)/(111)/(100) faceted structure, thus providing excellent catalytic activity and selectivity toward one-carbon (C1) products for the glycerol oxidation reaction. A hierarchically porous graphene architecture, grown on carbon cloth, is used to fabricate the confined catalyst bed in order to enhance the mass-diffusion limitation in interface-confined reactions. Owing to its unique 3D porous structure, this graphene-confined Pt catalyst exhibits an extraordinary mass activity of 2910 mA mg<sub>Pt</sub> <sup>-1</sup> together with a formate selectivity of 79% at 60 °C. This paves the way toward rational designs of heterogeneous catalysts for energy-related applications.