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Title
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Organosiloxane tunability in mesoporous organosilica and punctuated Pd nanoparticles growth; theory and experiment
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Type
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JournalPaper
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Keywords
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Organosilica mesoporous materials Pd nanoparticles Atomistic simulation Catalysis Formic acid decomposition Reduction of p-nitrophenol
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Abstract
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The synthesis of mesoporous organosilicas (MOs) using co-condensation for a high ratio of a long and flexible chained organosiloxane bridge with silica precursor (e.g. tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS)) is a complex and challenging task. By complementing the experimental characterisations with density functional calculations, The critical ratio of the urea-based organosiloxane bridge (BTPU) to tetraethyl orthosilicate of 1:8 was identified to delivers reliably stable urea bridged MO (MO-urea) with relatively large surface area and mesoporosity. Moreover, the Pd nanoparticles supported on the pore channels of MO-urea achieve a narrow distribution size averaging at a diameter of ~2 nm. This fine distribution is driven by the Pd nanoparticles nucleating only on the exposed SiO2 section of MO-urea while the BTPU bridges punctuate the growth of the Pd nanoparticles limiting their size. As a result, the obtained Pd@MO-urea exhibits excellent multifunctional catalytic activity for hydrogen production from formic acid and p-nitrophenol (PN) reduction in aqueous media with four folds increase in yield compared to the non-punctuated Pd nanoparticles.
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Researchers
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M. Hussein N N. Assadi (Not In First Six Researchers), Hamidreza Arandiyan (Not In First Six Researchers), Yuan Wang (Fifth Researcher), Sadegh Rostamnia (Fourth Researcher), Mustafa Farajzhadeh (Third Researcher), Hamed Mohtasham (Second Researcher), Esmail Doustkhah (First Researcher)
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