Using a Nitrophenol Cocktail Screen to Improve Catalyst Down-selection

The catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4NP) with excess NaBH(4)is the benchmark model for quantifying catalytic activity of nanoparticles. Although broadly useful, the reaction can be very selective. This can lead to false positives and negatives when utilized for catalyst down-selection from a broader materials candidate pool. We report a multi-nitrophenol cocktail screening methodology incorporating4NPand other amino-nitrophenols, utilizing Ag, Au, Pt, and Pd nanoparticles on carbon support. The reduction of the cocktail proceeds with no deleterious side reactions on the time-scale tested. The resulting kinetic rates provide an improved correlation of relative catalyst activity when compared to performance with other reducible moieties (e. g. azo bonds), or when compared to solely4NPscreening.