Hydrogen chemisorption measurements catalysts

Ruthenium catalysts, supported on a commercial alumina (surface area 155 m have been prepared using two different precursors RUCI3 and Ru(acac)3 [172,173]. Ultrasound is used during the reduction step performed with hydrazine or formaldehyde at 70 °C. The ultrasonic power (30 W cm ) was chosen to minimise the destructive effects on the support (loss of morphological structure, change of phase). Palladium catalysts have been supported both on alumina and on active carbon [174,175]. Tab. 3.6 lists the dispersion data provided by hydrogen chemisorption measurements of a series of Pd catalysts supported on alumina. is the ratio between the surface atoms accessible to the chemisorbed probe gas (Hj) and the total number of catalytic atoms on the support. An increase in the dispersion value is observed in all the sonicated samples but the effect is more pronounced for low metal loading. 

Nitrogen and krypton physisorption measurements at 77 K and hydrogen chemisorption measurements at 293 K were carried out with a Belsorp 28SA automatic adsorption apparatus in order to obtain BET surface area and the number of surface nickel atoms, respectively. The structure of catalysts was determined by X-ray diffraction using Cu radiation. 

Based on surface area measurements (hydrogen chemisorptions) the catalyst with 1 % alumina did not sinter as a result of reaction. This was in distinct contrast to the alumina-free catalyst initially used that sintered so completely upon re-reduction in hydrogen as to lose nearly 100% of its surface area. As for the potassium-promoted catalyst, SA measurements indcale a decrease in active metal sites of around 35% but it is not known whether this is due to sintering or unreduced carbon/carbide. 

To determine nickel surface areas of fresh catalysts, hydrogen chemisorption measurements were performed with the atmospheric TPH apparatus described above. Nickel surface areas of the catalysts were also measured by static volumetric hydrogen chemisorption (Coulter Omnisorp 100 cx). Before these measurements, samples were reduced in situ in a pure hydrogen atmosphere by raising the temperature up to 900°C (20°C/min). The samples were then cooled in a helium flow and the measurements were performed at 30°C. The catalyst materials and the analytical methods are described in [4,6,7]. 

Treatment and Characterization of Catalysts. A dynamic pulse adsorption apparatus (16) was used to carry out in situ pretreatments, reductions, degassing and hydrogen chemisorption measurements. 

In addition to actual synthesis tests, fresh and used catalysts were investigated extensively in order to determine the effect of steam on catalyst activity and catalyst stability. This was done by measurement of surface areas. Whereas the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) area (4) is a measure of the total surface area, the volume of chemisorbed hydrogen is a measure only of the exposed metallic nickel area and therefore should be a truer measure of the catalytically active area. The H2 chemisorption measurement data are summarized in Table III. For fresh reduced catalyst, activity was equivalent to 11.2 ml/g. When this reduced catalyst was treated with a mixture of hydrogen and steam, it lost 27% of its activity. This activity loss is definitely caused by steam since a... 

Because XPS is a surface sensitive technique, it recognizes how well particles are dispersed over a support. Figure 4.9 schematically shows two catalysts with the same quantity of supported particles but with different dispersions. When the particles are small, almost all atoms are at the surface, and the support is largely covered. In this case, XPS measures a high intensity Ip from the particles, but a relatively low intensity Is for the support. Consequently, the ratio Ip/Is is high. For poorly dispersed particles, Ip/Is is low. Thus, the XPS intensity ratio Ip/Is reflects the dispersion of a catalyst on the support. Several models have been reported that derive particle dispersions from XPS intensity ratios, frequently with success. Hence, XPS offers an alternative determination of dispersion for catalysts that are not accessible to investigation by the usual techniques used for particle size determination, such as electron microscopy and hydrogen chemisorption. 

Static Chemisorption. Measurements were made by two procedures. In the first, the catalyst was evacuated at ca. 250°C for at least 8 hrs and cooled to the measurement temperature under vacuum. Hydrogen was then admitted at progressively higher pressures and the amount of gas adsorbed after 15-30 min at each pressure recorded. The sample was then evacuated for 30 min and the dosing procedure repeated so as to obtain a measure of the reversibly adsorbed gas. In the second (saturation) procedure, after reduction and evacuation, the catalyst was cooled to the... 

Let us now use the sequence of elementary steps to explain the activity loss for some of the catalysts The combination of hydrogen chemisorption and catalytic measurements indicate that blocking of Pt by coke rather than sintering causes the severe deactivation observed in the case of Pt/y-AljOj The loss in hydrogen chemisorption capacity of the catalysts after use (Table 2) is attributed mainly to carbon formed by methane decomposition on Pt and impeding further access. Since this coke on Pt is a reactive intermediate, Pt/Zr02 continues to maintain its stable activity with time on stream. 

As always in chemisorption measurements, pretreatment of the samples should be done with care. For metal catalysts prepared from oxides in particular this is experimentally troublesome because a reduction step is always needed in the preparation of the metal catalyst. Hydrogen or hydrogen diluted with an inert gas is usually used for the reduction but it is difficult to remove adsorbed H2 from the surface completely. So, after reduction the metal surfaces contains (unknown) amounts of H atoms, which are strongly retained by the surface and, as a consequence, it is not easy to find reliable values for the dispersion from H2 chemisorption data. 

Instrument. Before the H2 chemisorption, each sample was heated in pure H2 at 300°C for 90 min, subsequently it was heated in He at 290°C for 60 min in order to desorb hydrogen from the sample. The chemisorption measurement was performed at 0°C by several H2 pulses with an Ar purge in between, in order to desorb physisorbed hydrogen. A 1/1 H/Pt ratio was used to estimate the Pt dispersion. Values in the range 50-70% have been obtained on the fresh samples Pt—Ba/ y-Al203 (1/20/100 w/w) catalyst. 

The dispersion of the catalyst was measured by hydrogen chemisorption at 27 °C in the Coulter Omnisorp 100 CX equipment. The catalysts were subjected to an in situ reduction under hydrogen at 350 °C for 1 h before chemisorption... 

The anchoring and the reduction methods of precious metal precursors influence the particle size, the dispersion and the chemical composition of the catalyst. The results of SEM and H2 chemisorption measurements are summarised in Table 3. The XPS measurements indicate that the catalysts have only metallic Pd phase on their surface. The reduction of catalyst precursor with sodium formate resulted in a catalyst with lower dispersion than the one prepared by hydrogen reduction. The mesoporous carbon supported catalysts were prepared without anchoring agent, this explains why they have much lower dispersion than the commercial catalyst which was prepared in the presence of a spacing and anchoring agent (15). 

Chemisorption measurements (Quantachrome Instruments, ChemBET 3000) were conducted in order to determine the metal (Co) dispersion. Therefore, the nanomaterial catalysts were reduced under a hydrogen flow (10% H2 in Ar) at 633 K for 3 h. The samples were then flushed with helium for another hour at the same temperature in order to remove the weakly adsorbed hydrogen. Chemisorption was carried out by applying a pulse-titration method with carbon monoxide as adsorbing agent at 77 K. The calculation of the dispersion is based on a molar adsorption stoichiometry of CO to Co of 1. 

In agreement with the TPR results, the hydrogen chemisorption/pulse reoxidation data provided in Table 8.3 indicate that, indeed, the extents of reduction for the air calcined samples are -20% higher upon standard reduction at 350°C (compare 02 uptake values). Yet in spite of the higher extent of reduction, the H2 desorption amounts, which probe the active site densities (assume H Co = 1 1), indicate that the activated nitric oxide calcined samples have higher site densities on a per gram of catalyst basis. This is due to the much smaller crystallite that is formed. The estimated diameters of the activated air calcined samples are between 27 and 40 nm, while the H2-reduced nitric oxide calcined catalysts result in clusters between 10 and 20 nm, as measured by chemisorption/pulse reoxidation. 

Results of Hydrogen Chemisorption/Pulse Reoxidation Measurements over Activated Silica-Supported Cobalt Catalysts Calcined at 350°C Using either Flowing Air or 5% Nitric Oxide in Nitrogen... 

The results confirm that the novel metal nitrate conversion method using nitric oxide in place of air advocated by Sietsma et al. in patent applications WO 2008029177 and WO 2007071899 leads to, after activation in H2, catalysts with smaller cobalt crystallites, as measured by EXAFS and hydrogen chemisorption/ pulse reoxidation. In spite of the lower extent of cobalt reduction for H2-activated nitric oxide calcined catalysts, which was recorded by TPR, XANES, EXAFS,... 

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