Monday, 30th January 2006 (5185 views)

A team of scientists has discovered the structure of a type of gold-palladium nanoparticle, which presents positive opportunities for the chemical, pharmaceutical and perfume industries, Nanotechwire.com

Material scientists at Lehigh University and catalyst chemists at Cardiff University, led by Christopher Kiely of Lehigh have discovered the structure of the nanoparticle, which Professor Kiely explained would allow them to better understand how the catalyst works on an atomic level.

The team at Cardiff developed the use of gold-palladium nanoparticles as a catalyst in the oxidation of primary alcohols into aldehydes.

The chemical, pharmaceutical and perfume industries all rely on the oxidation of primary alcohols to aldehydes. Aromatic primary alcohols, such as vanillyl and cinnamly alcohol are used to manufacture perfumes and flavourings and demand is high – for example 95 per cent of all vanilla is synthetically produced.

However, past oxidation techniques have tended to use ermanganates or chromates, which are expensive and pose toxicity issues.

The new catalyst, gold-palladium nanoparticles dispersed on a titanium oxide support, allows the reaction to take place in oxygen under mild solvent-free conditions.

The outer shell of the catalyst is palladium rich. In comparative research, it was found that the gold-palladium catalyst produced significantly better reactions than a palladium only catalyst, leading the scientists to suggest that gold acts as an electron promoter, increasing the nanoparticle's catalytic properties.

The full details of the experiment are published in Science Magazine, in an article entitled Solvent-free oxidation of primary alcohols to aldehydes using titania-supported gold-palladium catalysts.

 

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