Immobilizing Palladium Nanoparticles on Nitrogen-Doped Carbon for Promotion of Formic Acid Dehydrogenation and Alkene Hydrogenation

A novel palladium (Pd)-supported Nitrogen-doped carbon catalyst (Pd@CN) is prepared via polymerization of 1,3,5-triacryloylhexahydro- 1,3,5-triazine (TAT), adsorption of Pd nanoparticles (Pd NPs), and followed by pyrolysis treatment. The TAT polymer (PTAT) was revealed to be an ideal precursor with strong adsorb ability for Pd NPs, and the pyrolysis treatment of Pd/PTAT not only led to the generation of nitrogen-doped carbon support but also significantly enhanced the Pd-support interaction for the target catalyst Pd@CN. Catalytic tests demonstrate that Pd@CN shows superior catalytic activity and selectivity toward the hydrogen production and alkene hydrogenation with formic acid as the carrier. Besides, the catalyst presents improved reusability, structure stability and could be reused five runs without finding significant decrease of activity and obvious leaching of Pd species. Such excellent catalytic performance of Pd@CN is mostly attributed to the prominent surface electronic modulation with pyridinic-N in CN. This work displays a facile and effective way for the rational design of excellent Pd-supported catalysts for better hydrogen energy exploitation and applications.