Novel approach to boost the catalytic activity of precious metals
Novel approach to boost the catalytic activity of precious metals
The functional materials group at the Center for Materials Science (CMS)-Zewail City of Science and Technology demonstrated lately a novel synthetic pathway to enhance the mass activity of one of the most precious metal catalysts, the Platinum (Pt). The group led by Dr. Alkordi (Director of the Materials Science program and Associate Director for the Center of Materials Science) has published their research findings at the American Chemical Society-Catalysis (ACS Catalysis) journal (IF = 10.614). The novel idea behind the works is to utilize the ability of chemists to construct microporous materials with high surface area, acting as a sponge, to immobilize ionic Pt species that can be loaded into the material simply by soaking in a solution of Pt ions. The material contains basic nitrogen atoms, to act as the anchor points to which Pt ions will bind in subsequent treatment.
The authors opted to utilize this novel approach in contrast to commonly utilized ones like loading Pt into catalytic supports as Pt nanoparticles. Alkordi explains that although scientists have pushed the limits in terms of mass activity by utilizing the tiny nanoparticles of Pt, in an attempt to maximize the use of the expensive Pt atoms, the group has pushed the limit even further by utilizing ionic/atomistic Pt in their novel scaffolds. In direct consequence to this design, the authors managed to enhance the mass activity of Pt. The international team that contributed to this effort have further plans to demonstrate the versatility of this approach into many other heterogeneous catalytic applications, including energy storage and conversion processes that are expected to impact our society positively.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acscatal.7b02246
This research aims to reduce the high cost of one of the most active materials used in catalysis in general, the platinum. Favorable impact on the cost of systems like fuel cells and electrolyzers essential in the hydrogen economy is expected from this research.
