Sonia Eskandari
eskandas@email.sc.edu
Supported catalysts are used extensively in a variety of heterogeneously catalyzed reactions for industrial processes. Techniques for preparing supported noble metal catalysts are typically chosen to achieve high metal dispersion in order to obtain high activity for a given metal loading. In the preparation of supported metal catalysts, the methods of Strong Electrostatic Adsorption (SEA), and its incipient wetness analog, Charge Enhanced Dry Impregnation (CEDI), can yield supported metal nanoparticles with high dispersion and narrow size distribution.
My research is applying CEDI and SEA methods to macro porous (Aerosil300) and mesoporous (one dimensional porous SBA-15) silica to prepare monometallic (Pt, Pd, Co, Ni, and Cu) catalysts at multiple metal loadings (1 – 20 wt%) as well as their bimetallic. The synthesized catalysts were characterized by high sensitivity powder XRD and in select formulations, with aberration-corrected z-contrast STEM imaging.