Preparation of carbide-derived carbon supported platinum catalysts

Well defined carbon supported catalysts are of interest to deduce structure activity relationships and for catalyst optimization. Carbide-derived carbons (CDC) are high purity porous carbons with tunable pore structure. The deposition of platinum on silicon and titanium carbide based CDC was studied, using a three step process of acid treatment, ion-adsorption of platinum precursor and gas phase reduction. The influence of the steps on the carbon support properties and possibility to control the platinum loading and resulting cluster size was determined. Most crucial is the acid treatment step, where oxygen groups are introduced. At a too high degree of functionalization (non-carbon content above 30 wt%), which can result for nitric acid treatment, the pore structure is heavily attacked. For sulfuric acid treatments non-carbon contents below 15 wt% and only minor changes in the pore structure were observed. The ion-adsorption technique could be successfully transferred to the CDC supports. For medium to high degrees of functionalization (non-carbon contents above 20 wt%) the full deposition of 2.5 wt% of platinum was achieved. By the choice of platinum precursor, the pH of impregnation and the temperature of reduction the platinum cluster size could be varied from 2.5 to 5.3 nm. Thus, important knowledge how to prepare tuned Pt/C catalysts based on CDC and the ion-adsorption technique could be deduced. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.