Research Information System
NANO TR 19, Ankara, Turkey, 27 August 2025, pp.96, (Summary Text)
With the depletion of fossil fuel reserves, the development of clean and sustainable alternative energy sources has become increasingly critical. Among these, hydrogen stands out as one of the most promising candidates to replace conventional non-renewable fuels. In the context of hydrogen generation from formic acid (FAD), palladium (Pd) nanoparticles, despite their high cost and reliance on noble metals, are commonly utilized due to their significant catalytic efficiency. To overcome the high cost and limited availability of noble metals, considerable efforts have been directed toward developing improved catalytic systems, such as Co/Pd-supported porous carbon [1] and ZrO2/Pd-supported porous carbon [2]. Here we show that copper-promoted nitrogen-doped porous carbon can be utilized in the dehydrogenation of formic acid. ZIF-8 crystals, metal-organic framework (MOF) materials composed of 2-methylimidazole ligands coordinated with zinc cations, were synthesized and pyrolyzed at 900 °C under Ar environment to produce porous carbon. The direct carbonization of ZIF-8 crystals led to an increase in the active nitrogen content, the formation of porous carbon, and significant modifications to the pore structure and surface properties. Subsequently, various concentrations of copper and palladium nanoparticles were incorporated into the synthesized porous carbon structure. The catalysts have been analyzed using various characterization techniques, including SEM, XRD, FTIR, ICP-OES, and HR-TEM. The influence of different Pd and Cu concentrations on the turnover frequency (TOF) was systematically investigated. The resulting novel materials demonstrated remarkable TOF values up to 1176 h-1 for the formic acid dehydrogenation at 60 °C. This study highlights that a satisfactory TOF value can be achieved using an alternative catalyst with reduced reliance on noble metals.