The article published by our team was promoted on the cover page Nanomaterials journal

Palladium-based catalysts are extensively applied in petrochemical and fine chemical industries for processing of hydrocarbons. Understanding the processing occurring to hydrocarbon molecules upon their interaction with active sites of the catalysts is a problem of high fundamental and practical importance. 

Using a set of complementary techniques based on IR and X-ray (synchrotron) radiation our researchers managed to observe the evolution of ethylene molecules upon their interaction with supported palladium nanoparticles. It was found that the processes occurring on real catalysts under industrially relevant temperatures and pressures differ from those observed on ideal metal surface under vacuum conditions. In particular the major process observed was dehydrogenation of ethylene (C₂H₄ -> C₂H₃ -> C₂H₂ -> C₂H₁) with subsequent decomposition to atomic carbon and formation of palladium carbide. It should be noted that bulk palladium carbides were observed even at low temperature.

The investigation involved experiments at the leading European synchrotron radiation facility ESRF (Grenoble, France) and in the Smart Materials laboratories. It was supported by the State assignment in the field of scientific activity, # 0852-2020-0019. Our PhD students Oleg Usoltsev, Alina Skorynina and Andrei Tereshchenko, and master students Elizaveta Kamyshova and Anna Pnevskaya were actively involved in the study.

The paper was published in Nanomaterials journal (Impact-factor 4.324, Q1), and was promoted on the cover page of its September's issue.

Read & Cite:

O. A. Usoltsev, A. Y. Pnevskaya, E. G. Kamyshova, A. A. Tereshchenko, A. A. Skorynina, W. Zhang, T. Yao, A. L. Bugaev and A. V. Soldatov, Nanomaterials, 2020, 10 (9), 1643.

DOI: 10.3390/nano10091643