Catalysts electrocatalysis

The use of CeOs-based materials in catalysis has attracted considerable attention in recent years, particularly in applications like environmental catalysis, where ceria has shown great potential. This book critically reviews the most recent advances in the field, with the focus on both fundamental and applied issues. The first few chapters cover structural and chemical properties of ceria and related materials, i.e. phase stability, reduction behaviour, synthesis, interaction with probe molecules (CO. O2, NO), and metal-support interaction — all presented from the viewpoint of catalytic applications. The use of computational techniques and ceria surfaces and films for model catalytic studies are also reviewed. The second part of the book provides a critical evaluation of the role of ceria in the most important catalytic processes three-way catalysis, catalytic wet oxidation and fluid catalytic cracking. Other topics include oxidation-combustion catalysts, electrocatalysis and the use of cerium catalysts/additives in diesel soot abatement technology. 

Y. Kwon and J. Lee, Eormic acid from carbon dioxide on nanolayered catalyst. Electrocatalysis 1,2010,108-115. 

In the case of electrochemically promoted (NEMCA) catalysts we concentrate on the adsorption on the gas-exposed electrode surface and not at the three-phase-boundaries (tpb). The surface area, Ntpb, of the three-phase-boundaries is usually at least a factor of 100 smaller than the gas-exposed catalyst-electrode surface area Nq. Adsorption at the tpb plays an important role in the electrocatalysis at the tpb, which can affect indirectly the NEMCA behaviour of the electrode. But it contributes little directly to the measured catalytic rate and thus can be neglected. Its effect is built in UWr and [Pg.306]

The first In situ MBS Investigation of molecules adsorbed on electrode surfaces was aimed primarily at assessing the feasibility of such measurements In systems of Interest to electrocatalysis (18). Iron phthalocyanlne, FePc, was chosen as a model system because of the availability of previous situ Mossbauer studies and Its Importance as a catalyst for O2 reduction. The results obtained have provided considerable Insight Into some of the factors which control the activity of FePc and perhaps other transition metal macrocycles for O2 reduction. These can be summarized as follows ... 

In electrocatalysis, the activated carbons, glassy carbon, and carbon black are the transitional forms used. Carbon black is the product of incomplete combustion or decomposition of organic compounds. The shape of its particles is close to spherical. They contain several carbon atom lattice fragments arranged without order. Various types of carbon black serve as substrates for metal catalysts, the properties of the carbon blacks themselves having a strong elfect on the catalytic activity of the combined catalysts thus obtained. 

A period of high research activity in electrocatalysis began after it had been shown in 1963 that fundamentally, an electrochemical oxidation of hydrocarbon fuel can be realized at temperatures below 150°C. This work produced a number of important advances. They include the discovery of synergistic effects in platinum-ruthenium catalysts used for the electrochemical oxidation of methanol. 

Some pessimism in assessing the situation in the field of electrocatalysis may also derive from the fact that one of the final aims of work in this held, setting up a full theory of electrocatalysis at a quantum-mechanical level while accounhng for all interactions of the reacting species with each other and with the catalyst surface, is still very far from being reahzed. So far we do not even have a semiempirical— if sufficiently general—theory with which we could predict the catalytic activity of various catalysts. 

At present, most workers hold a more realistic view of the promises and difficulties of work in electrocatalysis. Starting in the 1980s, new lines of research into the state of catalyst surfaces and into the adsorption of reactants and foreign species on these surfaces have been developed. Techniques have been developed that can be used for studies at the atomic and molecular level. These techniques include the tunneling microscope, versions of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and of photoelectron spectroscopy, differential electrochemical mass spectroscopy, and others. The broad application of these techniques has considerably improved our understanding of the mechanism of catalytic effects in electrochemical reactions. 

Significant (and even spectacular) results were contributed by the group of Norskov to the field of electrocatalysis [102-105]. Theoretical calculations led to the design of novel nanoparticulate anode catalysts for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) which are composed of trimetallic systems where which PtRu is alloyed with a third, non-noble metal such as Co, Ni, or W. Remarkably, the activity trends observed experimentally when using Pt-, PtRu-, PtRuNi-, and PtRuCo electrocatalysts corresponded exactly with the theoretical predictions (cf. Figure 5(a) and (b)) [102]. 

Since 1976 until present time Toshima-t5q)e nanocolloids always had a major impact on catalysis and electrocatalysis at nanoparticle surfaces [47,210-213,398-407]. The main advantages of these products lie in the efficient control of the inner structure and morphology especially of bimetallic and even multimetallic catalyst systems. 

So far, uncatalysed electrochemical processes have had to compete with catalytic organic processes. There is considerable scope for a specific catalyst to be developed for specific organic electrochemical reactions. This implies reduced overpotential and acceleration of slow chemical rather than relatively fast charge-transfer steps (Jansson, 1984). Electrocatalysis... 

In the electron transfer theories discussed so far, the metal has been treated as a structureless donor or acceptor of electrons—its electronic structure has not been considered. Mathematically, this view is expressed in the wide band approximation, in which A is considered as independent of the electronic energy e. For the. sp-metals, which near the Fermi level have just a wide, stmctureless band composed of. s- and p-states, this approximation is justified. However, these metals are generally bad catalysts for example, the hydrogen oxidation reaction proceeds very slowly on all. sp-metals, but rapidly on transition metals such as platinum and palladium [Trasatti, 1977]. Therefore, a theory of electrocatalysis must abandon the wide band approximation, and take account of the details of the electronic structure of the metal near the Fermi level [Santos and Schmickler, 2007a, b, c Santos and Schmickler, 2006]. 

Electrocatalysis and Catalyst Screening from Density Functional Theory Calculations... 

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