Enhanced performances in catalytic oxidation of o-xylene over hierarchical macro-/mesoporous silica-supported palladium catalysts

Abstract

A series of hierarchical macro-/mesoporous silica supports (MMSs) were successfully synthesized using dual-templating technique employing polystyrene (PS) spheres and the Pluronic P123 surfactant. Pd was next loaded on the hierarchical silica supports via colloids precipitation method. Physicochemical properties of the synthesized samples were characterized by various techniques and all catalysts were tested for the total oxidation of o-xylene. Among them, the Pd/MMS-b catalyst with tetraethoxysilane/polystyrene weight ratio of 1.0 exhibited superior catalytic activity, and under a higher gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) of 70000 h^-1, the 90% conversion of o-xylene has been obtained at around 200°C. The BET and SEM results indicated that Pd/MMS-b catalyst possesses high surface area and large pore volume, and well-ordered, interconnected macropores and 2D hexagonally mesopores hybrid network. This novel ordered hierarchical porous structure was highly beneficial to the dispersion of active sites Pd nanoparticles with less aggregation, and facilitates diffusion of reactants and products. Furthermore, the Pd/MMS-b catalyst possessed good stability and durability.

Keywords

hierarchical macro-/mesoporous / silica / palladium / VOCs catalytic oxidation

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 21337003 and 21477149), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB05050200).

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11783-015-0802-1 and is accessible for authorized users.

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg