Continuous synthesis of metal oxide-supported high-entropy alloy nanoparticles with remarkable durability and catalytic activity in the hydrogen reduction reaction
- 25 Jan 2025
- Recently published Research - Pharmacy
| Researchers | Wail Al Zoubi, Stefano Leoni, Bassem Assfour, Abdul Wahab Allaf, Jee-Hyun Kang and Young Gun Ko |
| Published in | InfoMat, early view (online version of record before inclusion in an issue) e12617, 09 September 2024. |
| Abstract | Metal oxide-supported multielement alloy nanoparticles are very promising as highly efficient and cost effective catalysts with a virtually unlimited compositional space. However, controllable synthesis of ultra-small multi-element alloy nanoparticles (us-MEA-NPs) supported on porous metal oxides with a homogeneous elemental distribution and good catalytic stability during long-term operation is extremely challenging due to their oxidation and strong immiscibility. As a proof of concept that such synthesis can be realized, this work presents a general “bottom-up,” ultrasonic-assisted, simultaneous electro-oxidation–reduction-precipitation strategy for alloying dissimilar elements into single NPs on a porous support. One characteristic of this technique is uniform mixing, which results from simultaneous rapid thermal decomposition and reduction and leads to multi-element liquid droplet solidification without aggregation. This process was achieved through a synergistic combination of enhanced electrochemical and plasma-chemical phenomena at the metal–electrolyte interface (electron energy of 0.3–-1.38 eV at a peak temperature of 3000 K reached within seconds at a rate of ~105 K per second) in an aqueous solution under an ultrasonic field (40 kHz). Illustrating the effectiveness of this approach, the CuAgNiFeCoRuMn@MgO-P3000 catalyst exhibited exceptional catalytic efficiency in selective hydrogenation of nitro compounds, with over 99% chemo-selectivity and nearly 100% conversion within 60 s and no decrease in catalytic activity even after 40 cycles (>98% conversion in 120 s). Our results provide an effective, transferable method for rationally designing supported MEA-NP catalysts at the atomic level and pave the way for a wide variety of catalytic reactions. Key words: activity, catalytic, metal nanoparticles, oxidation, reduction. |
| Link to full paper |
