Porous carbon supported calcium oxide for CO2 adsorption and separation of CO2/CH4.

Calcium oxide incorporated porous carbon materials were synthesized by the impregnation method to study CO2 adsorption and separation of CO2/CH4. The X-ray diffraction, Raman analysis, N2 isotherms at 77 K, and SEM with EDX analysis were used to characterize synthesized materials. XRD and N2 isotherm results have confirmed that synthesized carbon has porosity, and EDX analysis has reported that the presence of CaO on porous carbon. 10CaO/porous carbon has shown 31 cm3 g-1 of CO2 adsorption which was higher than bare porous carbon CO2 adsorption 17.5 cm3 g-1 at 298 K, 1 bar. It was attributed to electrostatic interaction between CaO and CO2. However, CH4 adsorption was decreased by a decrease in surface area. The selectivity of CO2/CH4 was higher for 10CaO/porous carbon and the heat of CO2 adsorption was 36 KJ/mol at high adsorption of CO2. Moreover, CO2 adsorption was the same in each adsorption cycle.

High Catalytic Activity of C60 Pdn Encapsulated in Metal-Organic Framework UiO-67, for Tandem Hydrogenation Reaction.

Metal nanoparticles (NPs) stabilized by MOFs are very promising for catalysis, whereas introduction of C60 into MOFs has been very rarely used, and there was no report for their cooperative catalysis in organic syntheses. In this work, C60 @UiO-67 was synthesized by a one-pot method, so that C60 is uniformly distributed on UiO-67 in molecular form. Pd NPs coordinating with C60 have been successfully embedded into the framework. The obtained multifunctional C60 Pdn @UiO-67 catalyst exhibits remarkable synergistic catalytic activity in cascade reactions under mild conditions, where UiO-67 affords Lewis acidity and C60 Pdn offers higher hydrogenation activity relative to solely Pd NPs.

Efficient Vapor-Phase Selective Hydrogenolysis of Bio-Levulinic Acid to γ-Valerolactone Using Cu Supported on Hydrotalcite Catalysts.

In this work, Cu nanoparticles (Cu NPs, 2-20 nm) supported on Hydrotalcite catalysts exhibit enhanced selectivity for γ-valerolactone (GVL) during hydrogenolysis of levulinic acid (LA). At 260 °C, over 3 wt% Cu achieved 87.5% of LA conversion with a maximum GVL selectivity (95%). In contrast, LA hydrogenolysis over 3Cu/Hydrotalcite catalyst is highly active and stable toward the production of GVL due to balanced acido-basicity and higher Cu dispersion with ultrasmall particle sizes, which are investigated through the temperature programmed desorption (TPD) of ammonia, N2O titration, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis. Hydrotalcite in combination with inexpensive Cu catalyst is found to be an efficient and environmentally benign for LA hydrogenolysis.