Chapter 22 - Heterogeneous Catalytic Reduction for Water Purification: Nanoscale Effects on Catalytic Activity, Selectivity, and Sustainability

Abstract

Reductive catalysis is a promising water treatment technology that employs heterogeneous metal catalysts (e.g., Pd nanoparticles on a support) to convert dihydrogen to adsorbed atomic hydrogen in order to promote reactions with functional groups in various contaminants. Reductive catalysis has several potential advantages, including high selectivity for a given target, fast rates under mild conditions, and low production of harmful by-products. The technology has been applied mostly for remediation of groundwater contaminated with halogenated hydrocarbons and for treatment of nitrate, but recent studies have expanded the range of target contaminants to include perchlorate and N-nitrosamines. Palladium-based catalysts hold tremendous promise for their ability to selectively destroy several drinking water contaminants, and some compounds that exhibit slow reaction kinetics with Pd alone are rapidly degraded when a second, promoter metal is added to the catalyst. However, there is a lack of information about the long-term sustainability of these catalytic treatment processes, which is a major consideration in their possible adoption for remediation applications. Recent research has focused on the nanoscale characterization of these heterogeneous catalysts in order to develop an improved understanding of their mechanisms of deactivation and the pathways for regeneration. Two examples of studies from the authors’ laboratories, involving (i) hydrodehalogenation of iodinated X-ray contrast media with Ni or Pd catalysts and (ii) selective reduction of nitrate with a regenerable Pd-In/alumina catalyst, are discussed in this chapter.