Preparation of Mesoporous Silica-Supported Palladium Catalyst for Biofuel Upgrade

Preparation of Mesoporous Silica-supported Palladium Catalyst for Biofuel Upgrade
Ling Fei, Joshua Hill, Qianglu Lin, Yun Xu, Shuguang Deng, Hongmei Luo
Department of Chemical Engineering, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003
A large number of reactions in organic chemistry (such as the Heck and hydrogenation) are facilitated by catalysis with palladium compounds.     Due to its highly selective chemical transformations in interfacial reactions, palladium plays an important role in petroleum cracking and biofuel upgrading. In this report, Pd catalyst based on mesoporous silica and/or carbon nanotubes (CNT) support has been prepared, such as Pd/CoMo/SiO2 and Pd/CNT/CoMo/SiO2. The structure and morphologies of catalysts are studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis. The BET surface area is tested by ASAP nitrogen adsorption and desorption. We will study the catalyst activity for biofuel upgrade, and report the influence of mesoporous silica with different pore size and surface area, CNT, and metals from different synthetic approach on catalyst activity.