Title : Designing Nanocatalysts for H2 Energy Generation and Heterogeneous Organic Transformation Reactions
Abstract:
Multifunctional nanostructures find the possibility for their applications in water splitting processes for hydrogen generation as a renewable source of green energy. Fe3O4 nanocubes were prepared in one pot process for the electrochemical water splitting and supercapacitor applications. As-synthesized Fe3O4 nanocubes with high specific surface area of 268 m2g-1, are ferromagnetic at room temperature and affects the electro-catalytic activity of the electrode materials. Similarly, the catalytic activity of ultrafine nanoparticles was examined against the Horseradish peroxidase enzyme and applied as sensor for the detection of H2O2 in the solution. Besides that, the stimulating bifunctional electro-catalytic performance of RuO2 nanoparticles was studied under different atmospheric conditions for electrochemical hydrogen energy. The studies of some multifunctional nanoparticles by citrate precursor route reveal the formation of monophasic nanostructures with fairly uniform distribution of nearly spherical particles, high specific surface area and visible optical band gap. Photocatalytic generation of hydrogen in water splitting process by using as-prepared nanoparticles has also been studied under the visible light irradiations which showed a significant H2 evolution reaction rate. The development of nanostructured catalysts has also been preferred to carry out the heterogeneous catalytic organic transformations because of greater number of surface-active sites for catalytic processes, high catalyst recovery rate, especially their environment friendly nature and their ease of synthesis. Besides the advances in nanocatalysis, certain challenges including not well-defined morphologies due to loss of control over it and loss of catalytic activity during operation need to be addressed. Herein, we discuss some nanocatalysts for certain organic transformation reactions with enhanced activity.
