Highly dispersed palladium nanoparticles anchored on polyethylenimine-modified carbon nanotubes for dehydrogenation of formic acid

Formic acid has been recognized as an excellent liquid hydrogen storage material. The development of catalysts with high performance for the dehydrogenation of formic acid is significant. Herein, we employed polyethylenimine-modified carbon nanotubes as a carrier for Pd nanoparticles to synthesize a novel catalyst by a wet chemical reduction method. It was found that the amino polymers on polyethylenimine-modified carbon nanotubes have great effects on reducing the size of Pd nanoparticles, changing the electronic state of Pd, and enhancing the hydrophilicity of catalyst. Therefore, the as-synthesized Pd/CNTs-A-PEI1800 catalyst showed superior activity for FA dehydrogenation in the absence of additives with an initial TOF value of 1506 h(-1) and a 100% selectivity of hydrogen. (C) 2022 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

In this study, a novel catalyst was synthesized by loading Pd nanoparticles onto polyethylenimine-modified carbon nanotubes. The catalyst exhibited excellent activity for formic acid dehydrogenation.