Catalyst-support interactions hydrogenation

Catalysts for coal liquefaction require specific properties. Catalysts of higher hydrogenation activity, supported on nonpolar supports, such as tita-nia, carbon, and Ca-modified alumina, are reasonable for the second stage of upgrading, because crude coal liquids contain heavy polar and/or basic polyaromatics, which tend to adsorb strongly on the catalyst surface, leading to coke formation and catalyst deactivation. High dispersion of the catalytic species on the support is very essential in this instance. The catalyst/support interactions need to be better understood. It has been reported that such interactions lead to chemical activation of the substrate 127). This is discussed in more detail in Section XIII. 

Allyl Complexes. Allyl complexes of thorium have been known since the 1960s and are usually stabilized by cyclopentadienyl ligands. AEyl complexes can be accessed via the interaction of a thorium haUde and an aHyl grignard. This synthetic method was utilized to obtain a rare example of a naked aHyl complex, Th(Tj -C2H )4 [144564-74-9] which decomposes at 0°C. This complex, when supported on dehydroxylated y-alumina, is an outstanding heterogeneous catalyst for arene hydrogenation and rivals the most active platinum metal catalysts in activity (17,18). 

As an additional probe of metal activity, we monitored benzene hydrogenation activity. As seen in Figure 9, Pt-containing rare earth catalysts have lower hydrogenation activity than chlorided alumina catalysts this result reflects inhibition of metal activity on these supports relative to conventional transitional alumina supports. Whereas the acid strength can be adjusted close to that of chlorided and flourided aluminas, metal activity is somewhat inhibited on these catalysts relative to halided aluminas. This inhibition is not due to dispersion, and perhaps indicates a SMSI interaction between Pt and the dispersed Nd203 phase. 

The structure of supported rhodium catalysts has been the subject of intensive research during the last decade. Rhodium is the component of the automotive exhaust catalyst (the three-way catalyst) responsible for the reduction of NO by CO [1], In addition, it exhibits a number of fundamentally interesting phenomena, such as strong metal-support interaction after high temperature treatment in hydrogen [21, and particle disintegration under carbon monoxide [3]. In this section we illustrate how techniques such as XPS, STMS, EXAFS, TEM and infrared spectroscopy have led to a fairly detailed understanding of supported rhodium catalysts. 

The previous EXAFS studies were restricted to supported catalysts. Furthermore, the structural properties determined by MES and EXAFS were mainly related to the HDS activity and not to the other catalytic functions. Presently, we will report EXAFS (both Mo and Co), MES, HDS and hydrogenation activity studies of unsupported Co-Mo catalysts. These catalysts have been prepared by the homogeneous sulfide precipitation method (l8) which permits large amounts of Co to be present as Co-Mo-S. The choice of unsupported catalysts allows one to avoid some of the effects which inherently will be present in alumina supported catalysts, where support interactions may result in both structural and catalytic complexities. 

To investigate metal-support interactions during hydrogenation two noble metals Pt and Pd were used as a catalyst. 

The focus of these studies has been on identifying mild activation conditions to prevent nanoparticle agglomeration. Infrared spectroscopy indicated that titania plays an active role in dendrimer adsorption and decomposition in contrast, adsorption of DENs on silica is dominated by metal-support interactions. Relatively mild (150° C) activation conditions were identified and optimized for Pt and Au catalysts. Comparable conditions yield clean nanoparticles that are active CO oxidation catalysts. Supported Pt catalysts are also active in toluene hydrogenation test reactions. 

Despite the complex interaction between the components of a catalyst recipe, for example consisting of catalyst, co-catalyst, electron donors (internal and external), monomers, chain-transfer agents such as hydrogen, and inert gases and the catalyst support, the local polymer production rate rate (polymerization rate) in a given volume, Rp (kg polymer hr"1), can often be described by a first-order kinetic equation with respect to the local monomer concentration near the active site, cm (kgm"3), and is first order to the mass of active sites ( catalyst ) in that volume, m (kg) ... 

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