Facile fabrication of TiO2 with 3D hierarchical structure and its supported Pd catalysts for high catalytic hydrogenation performance of 4-Nitrophenol to 4-Aminophenol

TiO2 with different morphology as supports can lead to different surface properties and catalytic activities of catalysts. Herein, we reported a novel facile evaporation-induced assisted hydrothermal approach to synthesize three-dimensional hierarchical structure TiO2 assembled from needle flakes by using Brij-35 as the morphologydirecting agent. The morphology of the prepared TiO2 from flower-like (TiO2-FT), sea urchin-like (TiO2-SUT), to ball-like (TiO2 -BT), as well as the size of needle flakes, were controlled by adjusting the amount of Brij-35. These TiO2 supported palladium catalysts were facilely prepared using a green bio-reductive method with Catalpa Fruit extract as reducing agent, where they showed remarkable catalytic activity in selective hydrogenation of 4-nitrophenol by sodium borohydride. Especially, 1 wt%Pd/TiO2-SUT with sea urchin-like exhibited higher reaction rate constant (1.44 min(-1)) than 1 wt%Pd/TiO2-FT (1.08 min(-1)) and 1 wt%Pd/TiO2-BT (0.72 min(-1)). Furthermore, XRD, N2 adsorption-desorption, SEM, TEM, CO-FTIR, XPS and CO chemisorption measurements were performed to study the effects of different surface morphologies on the surface properties of catalysts. It reveals that the high catalytic performance of 1 wt%Pd/TiO2-SUT can be attributed to its specific hierarchical structure and much higher surface area, improving the uniform dispersion of Pd nanoparticles on the support to expose extra active surface Pd atoms (Pd-0 species) over 1 wt%Pd/TiO2-SUT.

Automated summary

Different morphologies of TiO2 supports can lead to varied surface properties and catalytic activities of catalysts. This study synthesized three-dimensional hierarchical structure TiO2 using a novel evaporation-induced assisted hydrothermal approach, controlling morphology and size by adjusting the amount of Brij-35. The TiO2 supported palladium catalysts showed remarkable catalytic activity in selective hydrogenation of 4-nitrophenol due to the specific hierarchical structure and higher surface area of TiO2-SUT.