Mechanochemically assisted fabrication of ultrafine Pd nanoparticles on natural waste-derived nitrogen-doped porous carbon for the efficient formic acid decomposition

Abstract

Utilizing natural waste as carbon source to prepare porous carbon with ultrahigh surface area and developing a facile protocol to synthesize supported metal nanoparticles toward an efficient formic acid (FA) decomposition are vital but remains challenging. Here, discarded ginkgo leaves were utilized as carbon source to prepare ginkgo leaf-derived porous carbon (GLPC) with an ultrahigh surface area of 3851 m2/g. Based on the as-prepared nitrogen-doped GLPC (N-GLPC) after “soft” nitriding, a facile solid-state reduction strategy with mortar-pestle grinding and without the use of any organic solvent and stabilizing ligand was developed to synthesize ultrafine and well-distributed Pd nanoparticles (NPs) with a diameter of 2.7 ± 0.7 nm. The “soft” nitriding temperature and addition of base during preparation played vital roles in the activity of the fabricated catalysts. The Pd/N-GLPC-350 exhibited the highest catalytic activity toward decomposing FA, achieving a high turnover frequency of 2952 h−1 at 333 K. The Pd/N-GLPC-350 was quite stable and could be reused at least five times without evident activity loss. This study provides a facile solid-state reduction protocol with mortar-pestle grinding to synthesize metal NPs by using natural waste-derived porous carbon as support toward efficient FA decomposition.