Mechanochemical Alkali-Metal-Salt-mediated synthesis of ZnO nanocrystals with abundant oxygen Vacancies: An efficient support for Pd-based catalyst

Zinc oxide is a key material in catalysis. Designing of ZnO crystal aggregates with the surface defect has received significant attention. Herein, we synthesized ZnO aggregates with tiny primary nanoparticles through a mechanochemistry-assisted salt-templating (potassium chloride) method. Interestingly, this KCl-templating strategy could lead to significant increase in specific surface area (SSA) of ZnO (up to 91 m(2)/g), whereas commercial ZnO-COM has a SSA of 5 m(2)/g. Meanwhile, this strategy via ZnCl2-KCl solid solution has also created a number of oxygen vacancies into ZnO aggregates. With these attractive features, as-made Pd-ZnO catalyst showed outstanding performance in methanol steam reforming, especially at low temperature (20 % Conversion and 95 % CO2 Selectivity at 150 degrees C). Current strategy provides a gateway for the rational design of ZnO-based catalytic materials.

Automated summary

Researchers successfully synthesized ZnO crystal aggregates with surface defects through mechanochemistry, increasing their specific surface area and demonstrating excellent performance in catalytic reactions.