Melted imidazole as solvent to fabricate a porous carbon supported catalyst

Melted imidazole as solvent to fabricate a porous carbon supported catalyst
Schematic illustration for the synthesis of Co/C and the photograph of the synthesis steps. Credit: Science China Press

This study is led by Dr. Shaojun Dong (Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences). At the beginning of this work, researchers wanted to design a simple method to synthesize Co nanoparticles. This is because that the Co NPs are very active for various catalytic reactions such as dehydrogenation and hydrogenation reactions, the selective oxidation of alcohols, and Fischer–Tropsch syntheses. Encapsulation of Co NPs with porous carbon is an effective approach for preventing aggregation and leaching of Co NPs, thus improving their activity and stability. “In most synthesis methods, the carbon sources are often solid materials, which need additional solvent to dissolve and re-separate. If these carbon sources can be melted and used as solvents, the synthesis steps will be greatly simplified” Shaojun says.

After experimenting with a large number of different kinds of small organic molecules, the team finally found that imidazole has a low melting point and high solubility for cobalt ions, which is very suitable for the synthesis of carbon supported cobalt nanoparticles. The whole synthesis process only needs two steps. The porous structure of the synthesized material is evenly distributed with a large number of cobalt nanoparticles on the surface. “We were shocked by the first SEM image of the material. This is beyond our expectation,” Jinxing says.

The team found that the multi-dimensional carbon supported Co nanoparticles (Co/C) catalyst simulating the function of natural NADH oxidase. The Co/C nanoparticles can consume NADH in cancer cells, induce the increase of reactive oxygen species, lead to the damage of oxidative phosphorylation and the decrease of mitochondrial membrane potential, and lead to the damage of ATP production.


Efficient catalyst for the light-driven methanation of CO2


More information:
Jinxing Chen et al, Bubble-templated synthesis of nanocatalyst Co/C as NADH oxidase mimic, National Science Review (2021). DOI: 10.1093/nsr/nwab186

Provided by
Science China Press


Citation:
Melted imidazole as solvent to fabricate a porous carbon supported catalyst (2021, December 28)
retrieved 28 December 2021
from https://phys.org/news/2021-12-imidazole-solvent-fabricate-porous-carbon.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

For all the latest Science News Click Here 

 For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! TheDailyCheck is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected] The content will be deleted within 24 hours.