J. Liu et al.
nanotube (TNT) has high surface area, open mesoporous
channel, semiconductor bands gaps and strong electronic
synergetic interaction with active sites. Based on these
above merits, TNT can support and disperse rather large
amounts of active species, and also facilitate fast transporta-
tion of reagents and products. Hence, TNT has found wide
application in many catalytic processes, including selective
catalytic reduction of ammonia [1, 2], oxidation of carbon
monoxide [3, 4] and dibenzothiophene [5, 6], selective cata-
lytic oxidation of alcohols [7–10], double-bond migration
Degussa [21–23], respectively. Besides the single TiO sup-
2
port, Zhou et al. [24] found that titanium incorporated Pd/
CDC–SiC was significantly more active than unmodified
Pd/CDC–SiC toward the hydrogenation of 4-carboxyben-
zaldehyde, due to the increasing dispersion of Pd.
It is well known that a carrier with higher surface area
is beneficial for the dispersion of active sites, and further
improve catalytic reactivity. Inspired by the fact that conven-
tional titanium dioxide is a suitable support for the hydro-
genation of 4-CBA, we thought that TNT supported palla-
dium should display superior catalytic performance. Herein,
we report an effective and cost saving synthetic strategy of
TNT supported palladium materials, and the synthesized Pd/
[
11], water–gas shift reaction [12], hydroformylation [13,
1
4], hydrodesulphurization [15] and alkylation [16].
Terephthalic acid (TA) is a core aromatic starting mate-
rial to polyester fibers manufacture development, and
mostly produced by liquid phase aerobic oxidation of
TNT were characterized by N adsorption, X-ray diffrac-
2
tion (XRD), X-ray photoelectron microscopy (XPS), induc-
tively coupled plasma spectrometry (ICP), scanning electron
microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy
(TEM), CO chemisorption. Furthermore, their catalytic
activity are evaluated by means of hydrogenation of 4-CBA,
and a wide product distribution including 4-hydroxymethyl
benzoic acid (4-HMBA), terephthalic acid (TA), p-toluic
acid (PA) as well as benzoic acid (BA) is also studied at
different catalyst loadings.
p-xylene in the acetic acid medium using Co(OAc) and
2
Mn(OAc) homogeneous catalysts with a bromine pro-
2
moter, as described in a process commonly known as the
BP-AMOCO technology. In the oxidation process, some
intermediate oxidation impurities such as 4-carboxy-ben-
zaldehyde (4-CBA) and several colorful polyaromatics are
accompanied by terephthalic acid (TA). In order to obtain
purified terephthalic acid conforming to polymerization
grade standard, crude terephthalic acid must be dissolved
in hot water at 270–280 °C, and followed by hydrogenation
in a trickle bed reactor, where activated carbon supported
palladium species are demonstrated as an excellent catalyst
with good resistance to hot acid corrosion. In pursuit of
satisfactory catalytic performance of carbon based cata-
lysts, Menegazzo et al. observed that the Pd/C possessed
high metal dispersion and good reactivity at the pH of the
impregnating palladium precursor solution ranging from
2 Experimental Section
2.1 Catalysts Preparation
TNT support was fabricated according to our previous work
as reported elsewhere [9]. In a typical procedure, 0.9 g TiO
2
(Degussa P25) was dispersed in 30 ml of 10 M NaOH solu-
tion under vigorous stirring for 30 min. After then, the
mixture was transferred into a Teflon-lined stainless steel
autoclave and maintained at 130 °C in an oven for 24 h.
1
.5 to 2 [17]. Jhung et al. [18] incorporated inexpensive
ruthenium into Pd/C to prevent the sintering of Pd, and the
bimetallic catalyst displayed a higher activity and stabil-
ity than the single Pd catalyst. Zhu et al. [19] investigated
the effect on hydrogenation process on product distribu-
tion over a monolith based carbon fiber supported Pd, and
emphasized to present a consecutive reaction mechanism,
namely an intermediate product 4-hydroxymethyl benzoic
acid (4-HMBA) and another deep hydrogenation product
p-toluic acid (PA). Similar reaction characteristic was also
previously observed by Li et al. [20].Although mentioned
above, the activated carbon supported catalysts still suffer
from drawbacks such as low crush strength and abrasion
resistance, leading to the palladium leaching and contami-
nation of downstream products. In order to avoid without
the loss in reactivity, one support comprising titanium oxide
have been developed as an excellent substitute for carbon
supports in the past decades. For example, preparation of
titanium dioxide supported one and more metals belong-
ing to group VIII for the efficient removal of 4-CBA was
disclosed in patents, which were assigned to Amoco and
The as-synthesized paste was washed by 0.1 M HNO and
3
0.05 M HNO in a sequence. Subsequently, it was further
3
washed to neutral by distilled water at 45 °C. Finally, the
white paste obtained was dried at 40 °C overnight and then
calcined at 400 °C for 1 h.
A Pd/TNT catalyst with a nominal loading of 0.5 weight
percentage palladium was prepared by the wetness incipi-
ent impregnation. Firstly, TNT was added into the aqueous
solution containing an appropriate amount PdCl at pH of
2
2, and the slurry was dried at room temperature. Secondly,
a desired amount of n-butanol was added into the solid from
the first step, and then the second slurry was dried at 80 °C
and subjected to annealing at 220 °C for 1 h. Prior to the
catalytic test, Pd/TNT was reduced by H at 220 °C for 1 h
2
in order to obtain a high metal dispersion catalyst. The cor-
responding reduction samples were denoted as 0.5Pd/TNT,
where 0.5 refers to the approximate palladium weight per-
centage in the sample.
1
3