Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.59, No.17, 8456-8468, 2020
Continuous Synthesis of Reduced Graphene Oxide-Supported Bimetallic NPs in Liquid-Liquid Segmented Flow
A segmented flow-based approach was proposed for the deposition of AgPd bimetallic nanoparticles (NPs) on reduced graphene oxide (AgPd/rGO) in continuous mode. AgPd/rGO was synthesized by reducing AgNO3 and Pd(NO3)(2) simultaneously with NaBH4 in the presence of graphene oxide (GO) and poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP). The synthesis included two steps, i.e., the formation of AgPd/GO and subsequent reduction of AgPd/GO to AgPd/rGO, which were both confined in dispersed aqueous plugs generated via introducing n-octane. Benefiting from the efficient micromixing in aqueous plugs, the as-prepared AgPd/rGO exhibited a narrower particle size distribution of AgPd NPs than that synthesized by the batch method. The segmented flow-based method was successfully extended to the preparation of PtPd/rGO and PtCu/rGO composites, demonstrating the versatility of this method. Moreover, the catalytic performance of the resultant AgPd/rGO was better than those of Ag/rGO and Pd/rGO in the catalytic reduction of p-nitrophenol to p-aminophenol because of the synergistic effect between the constituent metals.