Acetylene Hydrogenation on Au-Based Catalysts

Hydrogenation of acetylene has been investigated on Au/TiO2, Pd/TiO2 and Au-Pd/TiO2 catalysts at high acetylene conversion levels. The Au/TiO2 catalyst (avg. particle size: 4.6 nm) synthesized by the temperature-programmed reduction-oxidation of an Au-phosphine complex on TiO2 showed a remarkably high selectivity to ethylene formation even at 100% acetylene conversion. Au/TiO2 prepared by the conventional incipient wet impregnation method (avg. particle size: 30 nm), on the other hand, showed negligible activity for acetylene hydrogenation. Although the Au catalysts showed a high selectivity for ethylene, the acetylene conversion activity and catalyst stability were inferior to the Pd-based catalysts. Au-Pd catalysts prepared by the redox method showed high acetylene conversions as well as high selectivity for ethylene. Interestingly Au-Pd catalysts prepared by depositing Pd via the incipient wetness method on Au/TiO2 showed very poor selectivity (comparable to mono-metallic Pd catalysts) for ethylene. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) showed that while the redox method produced bimetallic Au-Pd catalysts, the latter method produced individual Pd and Au particles on the support.