Abstract
A blend of Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) and SiO2 microspheres in N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) underwent phase inversion to form a PVDF/SiO2 membrane with SiO2 microspheres in the membrane’s pores. Subsequently, the SiO2 microspheres have been used as platforms for in site Ag nanoparticles (NPs) synthesis, forming a composite membrane. Benefitting from the full exposure of Ag NPs to the reactants, the composite membrane shows high catalytic reactivity when catalyzing the reduction of p-nitrophenol under a cross-flow. The catalytic reaction follows the first-order kinetics, and the reaction rate increases with an increase in the amount of Ag NPs in the membrane, the reaction temperature, and the operating pressure. What is more, highly purified products can be produced and separated from the reactants in a timely manner by using the composite membrane.
Highlights
Noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) are very attractive catalysts due to their highly active surface atoms [1,2,3]
The catalytic recyclability was determined by repeating the measurement of p-nitrophenol reduction described in Section 2.8 with a composite membrane
The results demonstrate the presence of –NH2 on the surfaces of SiO2 microspheres, which can be used in the loading of Ag NPs for catalysis [9,10]
Summary
Noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) are very attractive catalysts due to their highly active surface atoms [1,2,3]. Previous reports have provided many successful technologies to anchor metal NPs into a polymeric membrane, but the formed membrane cannot realize the desired timely separation of products due to the metal catalysts both on the membrane’s surface and in the membrane’s pores, which always leads to a mixture of reactants and products [15,16,18]. We reported the successful separation of products from reactants by using a composite membrane with polymeric spheres and embedded metal NPs in the membrane’s pores [13,17] Since these polymeric spheres have the intrinsic drawbacks of wrapping the metal catalysts [2], they should be replaced by a better candidate. This reaction system will, no doubt, have significant value for the chemical industry
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