Preparation of Pt-loaded TiO2 nanofibers by electrospinning and their application for WGS reactions

Preparation of Pt-loaded TiO2 nanofibers; and their catalytic performance for water gas shift (WGS) reactions have been explained in this work. The Pt-loaded TiO2 nanofibers were obtained by electrospinning poly-ethylene oxide (PEO) aqueous solutions containing Ti(OH)(n) slurry and Pt nanoparticles at room temperature, followed by calcination at 773 K for 4 h. The calcined nanofibers were rougher than the nanofibers of PEO/Ti(OH)(n)/Pt due to the PEO degradation and oxidation of Ti(OH)(n) to TiO2. Diameters of the Pt-loaded TiO2 nanofibers ranged between 200 and 900 nm. Catalytic activity of the Pt-loaded TiO2 nanofibers for water gas shift (WGS) reactions was evaluated and it was observed that their activity was 5-7 times higher than that of a bulk catalyst. Such improvement is attributed to the larger surface area of the nanofiber catalyst compared to that of the bulk catalyst. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a synthesis of Pt-loaded TiO2 nanofibers from a Ti(OH)(n) nanoparticle slurry using electrospinning and its application to WGS reactions. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.