Janet Mary Fisher

Promotion of Direct Methanol Electro‐oxidation by Ru Terraces on Pt by using a Reversed Spillover Mechanism

By examining Pt‐core–Ru‐shell nanocatalysts of different compositions for the electro‐oxidation of methanol, a volcano activity response is revealed according to Ru coverage. This activity profile can be accounted for by a bifunctional mechanism of spilling over the hydroxy species from Ru to Pt in close proximity with supplemental electronic and structural promotions. At high surface coverage of Ru on Pt, it is revealed that a new ‘direct’ pathway of Ru terraces on Pt sites in close vicinity can provide synergetic catalysis. Pt sites activate the methoxy surface species, which migrate to the Ru terrace to react with its surface oxygenates, from water dissociation, for accelerated CO2 formation through a ‘reversed’ spillover mechanism. This non‐CO electro‐oxidation route to CO2 on a Ru surface requires a lower potential to take place than the corresponding process on a Pt surface.

Ruthenium(V) oxides from low-temperature hydrothermal synthesis.

Low-temperature (200 °C) hydrothermal synthesis of the ruthenium oxides Ca1.5 Ru2 O7 , SrRu2 O6 , and Ba2 Ru3 O9 (OH) is reported. Ca1.5 Ru2 O7 is a defective pyrochlore containing Ru(V/VI) ; SrRu2 O6 is a layered Ru(V) oxide with a PbSb2 O6 structure, whilst Ba2 Ru3 O9 (OH) has a previously unreported structure type with orthorhombic symmetry solved from synchrotron X-ray and neutron powder diffraction. SrRu2 O6 exhibits unusually high-temperature magnetic order, with antiferromagnetism persisting to at least 500 K, and refinement using room temperature neutron powder diffraction data provides the magnetic structure. All three ruthenates are metastable and readily collapse to mixtures of other oxides upon heating in air at temperatures around 300-500 °C, suggesting they would be difficult, if not impossible, to isolate under conventional high-temperature solid-state synthesis conditions.

Incorporation of square-planar Pd2+ in fluorite CeO2: hydrothermal preparation, local structure, redox properties and stability

The direct hydrothermal crystallisation at 240 °C of Pd2+-containing ceria is investigated to study the extent to which precious metal dopants may be introduced into the cubic fluorite lattice. Samples of composition Ce1−xPdxO2−δ, where 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.15 can be produced in which Pd is included within the CeO2 structure to give a linear lattice expansion. Attempts to produce higher Pd2+-substitution result in the formation of PdO as a secondary phase. Ce and Pd were determined to be in the +4 and +2 oxidation states, respectively, by X-ray absorption near edge structure, suggesting oxide deficiency as the mechanism of charge balance. Extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) analysis at the Pd K-edge reveals that Pd2+ has local square-planar coordination, as expected, and that a structural model can fitted in which the average fluorite structure is maintained, but with Pd2+ sitting in the square faces of oxide ions present in the local cubic geometry of Ce. This model, consistent with previous modelling studies, gives an excellent fit to the EXAFS spectra, and explains the observed lattice expansion. Transmission electron microscopy analysis shows that Pd is well dispersed in the nanocrystalline ceria particles, and in situ powder XRD shows that upon heating in air the samples remain stable up to 800 °C. H2-TPR shows that Pd-substitution leads to low temperature (<200 °C) reduction of the oxide, which increases in magnitude with increasing Pd-substitution. On prolonged heating, however, the Pd is lost from the ceria lattice to give dispersed Pd metal, suggesting an inherent instability of Pd-doped CeO2.

Methanol Oxidation Activity of PdRu Alloy Nanoparticles in Direct Methanol Fuel Cells

A carbon-supported PdRu (1:1) alloy was prepared by reduction of a supported mixed metal oxide precursor. The alloy phase was found to segregate on heating to Ru-rich and pure Pd phases. The single-phase alloy was evaluated for methanol oxidation in a membrane electrode assembly half-cell configuration, along with pure Pd, Ru, and benchmark PtRu catalysts. The mass activity of the PdRu was found to be at least an order of magnitude less than the PtRu catalyst. The cycle stability of the PdRu was assessed and found to be superior to pure Pd.

Structural variety in iridate oxides and hydroxides from hydrothermal synthesis

We report the results of an exploratory synthetic study of iridium-containing materials using hydrothermal methods from simple metal salts. Three alkali-earth iridium hydroxides are isolated as phase-pure samples and their structures examined by single-crystal or powder diffraction methods: each contains Ir(IV)-centred octahedra, isolated from each other and sharing bridging hydroxides or fluoride with alkali-earth (Ca, Sr or Ba) centres. One of these hydroxides, Ca2IrF(OH)6.OH, possesses a unique open structure, consisting of a positively-charged framework that has one-dimensional channels in which infinite chains of hydrogen-bonded hydroxide anions are encapsulated. The addition of hydrogen peroxide or sodium peroxide to otherwise identical hydrothermal reactions yields dense oxide materials in which iridium is found in an oxidation state between +4 and +5: the novel oxide Na0.8Sr2.2Ir3O10.1 has a KSbO3-type structure with an iridium oxidation state of +5, while the new pyrochlore (Na0.27Ca0.59)2Ir2O6·0.66H2O contains iridium with an average oxidation state close to +4.5. Our results illustrate the utility for hydrothermal synthesis in the discovery of novel complex structures that may be inaccessible using conventional high-temperature synthesis, with control of the metal oxidation state possible with judicious choice of reagents.

Pair Distribution Function Analysis of Structural Disorder by Nb5+ Inclusion in Ceria: Evidence for Enhanced Oxygen Storage Capacity from Under-Coordinated Oxide

Partial substitution of Ce4+ by Nb5+ is possible in CeO2 by coinclusion of Na+ to balance the charge, via hydrothermal synthesis in sodium hydroxide solution. Pair distribution function analysis using reverse Monte Carlo refinement reveals that the small pentavalent substituent resides in irregular coordination positions in an average fluorite lattice, displaced away from the ideal cubic coordination toward four oxygens. This results in under-coordinated oxygen, which explains significantly enhanced oxygen storage capacity of the materials of relevance to redox catalysis used in energy and environmental applications.

Alkaline-earth rhodium hydroxides : synthesis, structures, and thermal decomposition to complex oxides

The rhodium(III) hydrogarnets Ca3Rh2(OH)12 and Sr3Rh2(OH)12 crystallize as polycrystalline powders under hydrothermal conditions at 200 °C from RhCl3·3H2O and either Ca(OH)2 or Sr(OH)2 in either 12 M NaOH or KOH. Rietveld refinements against synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) data allow the first crystal structures of the two materials to be determined. If BaO2 is used as a reagent and the concentration of hydroxide increased to hydroflux conditions (excess NaOH), then single crystals of a new complex rhodium hydroxide, BaNaRh(OH)6, are formed in a phase-pure sample, with sodium included from the flux. Structure solution from single-crystal XRD data reveals isolated octahedral Rh centers that share hydroxides with 10-coordinate Ba and two independent 8-coordinate Na sites. 23Na magic-angle spinning NMR confirms the presence of the two crystallographically distinct Na sites and also verifies the diamagnetic nature of the sample, expected for Rh(III). The thermal behavior of the hydroxides on heating in air was investigated using X-ray thermodiffractometry, showing different decomposition pathways for each material. Ca3Rh2(OH)12 yields CaRh2O4 and CaO above 650 °C, from which phase-pure CaRh2O4 is isolated by washing with dilute nitric acid, a material previously only reported by high-pressure or high-temperature synthesis. Sr3Rh2(OH)12 decomposes to give a less crystalline material with a powder XRD pattern that is matched to the 2H-layered hexagonal perovskite Sr6Rh5O15, which contains mixed-valent Rh3+/4+, confirmed by Rh K-edge XANES spectroscopy. On heating BaNaRh(OH)6, a complex set of decomposition events takes place via transient phases.

Structure of Nano‐sized CeO2 Materials: Combined Scattering and Spectroscopic Investigations

The structure of several nano-sized ceria, CeO2 , systems was investigated using neutron and X-ray diffraction and X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Whilst both diffraction and total pair distribution functions (PDFs) revealed that in all of the samples the occupancy of both Ce4+ and O2- are very close to the ideal stoichiometry, the analysis using Reverse Monte Carlo technique revealed significant disorder around oxygen atoms in the nano-sized ceria samples in comparison to the highly crystalline NIST standard. In addition, the analysis revealed that the main differences observed in the pair correlations from various X-ray and neutron diffraction techniques were attributable to the particle size of the CeO2 prepared by the reported three methods. Furthermore, detailed analysis of the Ce L3 - and K-edge EXAFS data support this finding; in particular the decrease in higher shell coordination numbers with respect to the NIST standard, is attributed to differences in particle size.