Ruthenium nanoparticles

Binary systems of ruthenium sulfide or selenide nanoparticles (RujcSy, RujcSey) are considered as the state-of-the-art ORR electrocatalysts in the class of non-Chevrel amorphous transition metal chalcogenides. Notably, in contrast to pyrite-type MS2 varieties (typically RUS2) utilized in industrial catalysis as effective cathodes for the molecular oxygen reduction in acid medium, these Ru-based cluster materials exhibit a fairly robust activity even in high methanol content environments of fuel cells. 

This technique is the most widely used and the most useful for the characterization of molecular species in solution. Nowadays, it is also one of the most powerful techniques for solids characterizations. Solid state NMR techniques have been used for the characterization of platinum particles and CO coordination to palladium. Bradley extended it to solution C NMR studies on nanoparticles covered with C-enriched carbon monoxide [47]. In the case of ruthenium (a metal giving rise to a very small Knight shift) and for very small particles, the presence of terminal and bridging CO could be ascertained [47]. In the case of platinum and palladium colloids, indirect evidence for CO coordination was obtained by spin saturation transfer experiments [47]. 

The coordination of ligands at the surface of metal nanoparticles has to influence the reactivity of these particles. However, only a few examples of asymmetric heterogeneous catalysis have been reported, the most popular ones using a platinum cinchonidine system [65,66]. In order to demonstrate the directing effect of asymmetric ligands, we have studied their coordination on ruthenium, palladium, and platinum nanoparticles and the influence of their presence on selected catalytic transformations. 

In fact, partial hydrogenations are rarely described with soluble nanoparticle catalysts. Two examples are explained in the Uterature, one reported by Finke and coworkers in the hydrogenation of anisole with polyoxoanion-stabihzed Rh(0) nanoclusters [26] and one reported by Dupont and coworkers in the hydrogenation of benzene with nanoscale ruthenium catalysts in room temperature imidazoUiun ionic Uquids [69]. hi these two cases, the yields are very modest. 

Other one-pot preparations of bimetallic nanoparticles include NOct4(BHEt3) reduction of platinum and ruthenium chlorides to provide Pto.sRuo.s nanoparticles by Bonnemann et al. [65-67] sonochemical reduction of gold and palladium ions to provide AuPd nanoparticles by Mizukoshi et al. [68,69] and NaBH4 reduction of dend-rimer—PtCl4 and -PtCl " complexes to provide dend-rimer-stabilized PdPt nanoparticles by Crooks et al. [70]. 

PtRu nanoparticles can be prepared by w/o reverse micro-emulsions of water/Triton X-lOO/propanol-2/cyclo-hexane [105]. The bimetallic nanoparticles were characterized by XPS and other techniques. The XPS analysis revealed the presence of Pt and Ru metal as well as some oxide of ruthenium. Hills et al. [169] studied preparation of Pt/Ru bimetallic nanoparticles via a seeded reductive condensation of one metal precursor onto pre-supported nanoparticles of a second metal. XPS and other analytical data indicated that the preparation method provided fully alloyed bimetallic nanoparticles instead of core/shell structure. AgAu and AuCu bimetallic nanoparticles of various compositions with diameters ca. 3 nm, prepared in chloroform, exhibited characteristic XPS spectra of alloy structures [84]. 

The FTIR studies revealed that the formation of CO2 is only detected when the CO starts to be oxidized (Fig. 6.18). Therefore, it was proposed that the mechanism has only one path, with CO as the C02-forming intermediate [Chang et al., 1992 Vielstich and Xia, 1995]. This has two important and practical consequences. First, methanol oxidation will be catalyzed by the same adatoms that catalyze CO oxidation, mainly ruthenium. Second, since the steric requirements for CO formation from methanol are quite high, the catalytic activity of small (<4nm) nanoparticles diminishes [Park et al., 2002]. 

Waszczuk P, Solla-Gull6n J, Kim HS, Tong YY, Montiel V, Aldaz A, Wieckowski A. 2001a. Methanol electrooxidation on platinum/ruthenium nanoparticle catalysts. J Catal 203 1-6. 

Nashner MS, Frenkel Al, Adler DL, Shapley JR, Nuzzo RG. 1997. Structural characterization of carbon supported platinum-ruthenium nanoparticles from the molecular cluster precursor PtRu5(CO)i6. J Am Chem Soc 119 7760. 

He Y, Vinodgopal K, Ashokkumar M, Grieser F (2006) Sonochemical synthesis of ruthenium nanoparticles. Res Chem Intermed 32 709-715... 

Fig. 6.10 UV-vis absorption spectra of gold - ruthenium bimetallic nanoparticles prepared by the sonochemical co-reduction method using (a) 1 1 and (b) 1 5 gold - ruthenium compositions, respectively [45]...

Sathish Kumar P, Manivel A, Anandan S, Zhou M, Grieser F, Ashokkumar M (2010) Sonochemical synthesis and characterization of gold-ruthenium bimetallic nanoparticles. Colloids Surf A 356 140-144... 

As reported before, and as widely demonstrated in the literature, the hydroxyl groups ensure anchorage to Ti02 nanoparticles, as in the case of the most popular ruthenium-based dyes [32, 33],... 

Recently, Dupont and coworkers described the use of room-temperature imi-dazolium ionic liquids for the formation and stabilization of transition-metal nanoparticles. The potential interest in the use of ionic liquids is to promote a bi-phasic organic-organic catalytic system for a recycling process. The mixture forms a two-phase system consisting of a lower phase which contains the nanocatalyst in the ionic liquid, and an upper phase which contains the organic products. Rhodium and iridium [105], platinum [73] or ruthenium [74] nanoparticles were prepared from various salts or organometallic precursors in dry 1-bu-tyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate (BMI PF6) ionic liquid under hydrogen pressure (4 bar) at 75 °C. Nanoparticles with a mean diameter of 2-3 nm... 

Figure 3.31. Organic solar cell with the molecular glass Spiro-MeOTAD as the solid-state electrolyte. The photosensitive ruthenium dye is attached as a monolayer to Ti02 nanoparticles, thus forming a large active area for photoinduced electron transfer.

To avoid sintering, the nanoparticles are isolated from each other by a small loading. For a support of circa lOOm g" , and metal loading of about 1 wt%, with ruthenium particles of about 2 nm in diameter one obtains a statistical repartition of each particle every 30 nm. This means that such metallic particles of ruthenium particles are at a random distance of about 30 nm from each other. Electron microscopy indicates that this is frequently the case. 

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