Catalysts, general colloid

Colloidal nanoparticles can be employed as heterogeneous catalyst precursors in the same fashion as molecular clusters. In many respects, colloidal nanoparticles offer opportunities to combine the best features of the traditional and cluster catalyst preparation routes to prepare uniform bimetallic catalysts with controlled particle properties. In general, colloidal metal ratios are reasonably variable and controllable. Further, the application of solution and surface characterization techniques may ultimately help correlate solution synthetic schemes to catalytic activity. 

Since the reaction rates were found very different in the two catalytic systems, a direct comparison is not possible because the formation of small amounts of active molecular catalyst from the particles could not be excluded. In order to be able to rule out this possibility and more generally to characterise better the colloidal system, control experiments were carried out, founding all of them reproducible. 

Recently, Chaudhari compared the activity of dispersed nanosized metal particles prepared by chemical or radiolytic reduction and stabilized by various polymers (PVP, PVA or poly(methylvinyl ether)) with the one of conventional supported metal catalysts in the partial hydrogenation of 2-butyne-l,4-diol. Several transition metals (e.g., Pd, Pt, Rh, Ru, Ni) were prepared according to conventional methods and subsequently investigated [89]. In general, the catalysts prepared by chemical reduction methods were more active than those prepared by radiolysis, and in all cases aqueous colloids showed a higher catalytic activity (up to 40-fold) in comparison with corresponding conventional catalysts. The best results were obtained with cubic Pd nanosized particles obtained by chemical reduction (Table 9.13). 

In this chapter, we discussed some general results obtained using a new route of preparation method of metallic supported catalysts by using colloidal oxide chemistry... 

Hydrogenation of unsaturated carboxylic acids, such as acrylic, methacryUc, maleic, fumaric, cinnamic etc. acids was studied in aqueous solutions with a RhCU/TPPTS catalyst in the presence of p-CD and permethylated P-cyclodextrin [7]. In general, cyclodextrins caused an acceleration of these reactions. It is hard to make firm conclusions with regard the nature of this effect, since the catalyst itself is rather undefined (probably a phosphine-stabilized colloidal rhodium suspension, see 3.1.2) moreover the interaction of the substrates with the cyclodextrins was not studied separately. 

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