Resonant-XRD characterization of nanoalloyed Au-Pd catalysts for the direct synthesis of H2O2: Quantitative analysis of size dependent composition of the nanoparticles

The focus of this work is on the relationship between the quantitative structural characterization of bimetallic Au-Pd nanoparticles dispersed in an amorphous polymer matrix and their catalytic activity in the direct synthesis of hydrogen peroxide (DS reaction). Resonant X-ray powder diffraction with synchrotron radiation was employed to probe selectively and to reveal fine details of the structure of bimetallic nanoparticles embedded in the support. The semi-quantitative analysis of the resonant X-ray powdered diffraction data, made on a large number of metal nanoparticles, shows that in one of the polymer-supported Au-Pd catalyst for the DS reaction (P75) featured by an overall molar Pd/Au of about 5.54, the smallest metal nanoparticles (MNPs), which account for more than 99.9% of the total MNPs number and for more than 95% of the metal surface, are formed by practically pure palladium. The relative number of bimetallic alloyed nanoparticles is very small (less than 4 × 102 ppm) and they contribute to only about 2% of the total metal surface. In a second gold-enriched catalyst (P50) with an overall molar Pd/Au of 1.84, the proportion of the bimetallic alloyed nanoparticles increased to about 97% and they account for about 99% of the metal surface. As a result of the metal intermixing, the catalytic productivity for the DS reaction increased from 97 to 109 mmolH2O2 /molH2, owing to the gold-promotion of palladium.