Heterogeneous interfacial engineering of Pd/TiO2 with controllable carbon content for improved direct synthesis efficiency of H2O2

Series of heterogeneous interfacial engineered TiO2 (C-TiO2) with controllable carbon content were facilely synthesized by incipient-wet impregnation using glucose and subsequent thermal carbonization. The obtained C-TiO2 were used as catalytic supports to load Pd nanoparticles for H2O2 direct synthesis from H2 and O2. The as-prepared samples were systematically studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), air isothermal microcalorimeter, temperature-programmed reduction of H2 (H2-TPR), and so on. The catalytic results showed that H2O2 productivity and H2O2 selectivity of Pd/C-TiO2 firstly rose with increasing carbon content and then declined. Pd/C-TiO2 catalyst with 1.89 wt% of carbon content showed the best catalytic performance that had 61.2% of selectivity and 2192 mmol H2O2/gPd/h of productivity, which were significantly better than those of pristine Pd/TiO2 (45.2% and 1827 mmol H2O2/gPd/h). Various characterization results displayed that the carbon species were heterogeneously dispersed on TiO2 surface. Moreover, no obvious geometric transformation in supports and Pd nanoparticles were observed among different catalysts. The superficial hydrophobicity of Pd/C-TiO2 was gradually promoted with increasing carbon content, which led to the corresponding decrease in adsorption energy of H2O2 with catalysts. According to structure-performance relationship analyses, the heterogeneous interfacial engineering of carbon could maintain the interaction of Pd nanoparticles with TiO2 and simultaneously accelerate the H2O2 desorption. Both factors further determined the excellent H2O2 direct synthesis performance of Pd/C-TiO2. Heterogeneous interfacial engineering of carbon could maintain the interaction of Pd nanoparticles with TiO2 and simultaneously accelerate the H2O2 desorption, which improves the H2O2 direct synthesis performance of catalyst.