Self-Stirring Microcatalysts: Large-Scale, High-Throughput, and Controllable Preparation and Application

Herein, we introduce a strategy to develop a kind of unprecedented microcatalyst, which owns self-stirring and catalytic performance based on pneumatic printing and magnetic field induction technology. A spindle-shaped microcatalyst based on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with a certain aspect ratio and size can be obtained by tuning the printing parameters and the intensity of the magnetic field. One nozzle can print 18 000 microcatalysts per hour, which provides a prerequisite for the realization of large-scale production in the industrial field. Furthermore, this strategy can be widely applied to a variety of other heterogeneous catalysts, such as mesoporous SiO2, zeolite, metallic oxide, and so on. To demonstrate the superiority of the printed catalyst, the series of printed microcatalysts were evaluated by various catalytic reactions including liquid-phase hydrogenation, microdroplet dye-fading, and photocatalytic degradation in microreactor, all of which exhibited excellent catalytic performance.

Automated summary

In this article, a new strategy to develop an unprecedented microcatalyst based on pneumatic printing and magnetic field induction technology is introduced. The printed microcatalysts exhibited excellent catalytic performance in various reactions and could be potentially applied in large-scale industrial production.