Formation of palladium metal active sites on styrene–divinylbenzene copolymer catalyst by alcohol reduction at room temperature Original Research Article

Palladium acetate was a precursor to prepare the palladium on styrene–divinylbenzene (SDB) copolymer catalyst in methanol. It was used as both solvent and reductant. A new and novel technique was found in this study. Palladium acetate was easily reduced to palladium on SDB copolymer support by alcohols at room temperature. The TPR and FT-IR results showed that the amount of palladium acetate adsorbed on SDB copolymer increased with the loading of palladium acetate when the palladium on SDB copolymer was below 0.6% and decreased with the loading of palladium acetate when the loading of palladium on SDB copolymer was higher than 0.6%. The results also showed that a maximum palladium acetate concentration on SDB copolymer was 0.6%. The advantages of this new technique are: one may prepare an active palladium supported on hydrophobic polymer at low temperature and the polymer supports are not easily destroyed. Furthermore, most of the palladium acetate on SDB copolymer support was reduced to palladium by methanol. This new technique is much better than the conventional methods.