Synthesis of nanostructured catalysts by laser pyrolysis

Laser pyrolysis is a promising and versatile method allowing the synthesis of various nanoparticles, with well defined chemical composition, size and structure. This procedure is based on the interaction of a powerful IR laser beam with a mixture of gaseous or liquid precursors, with one of them absorbing the laser radiation. This paper presents the synthesis of nanoPt/TiO2 and nanoPd/TiO2 by laser pyrolysis and preliminary results about their efficiency for elimination of volatile organic compounds (deVOC). The nanoparticles have been synthesized by adding a metallic precursor in a liquid precursor (titanium isopropoxide). X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and IR spectroscopy have been used to analyse their nanostructures and morphologies. The volatile organic compounds elimination (deVOC) tests performed on these nanomaterials demonstrate that Pd-catalysts are very efficient in the total elimination of chloro-compounds. These catalytic properties are unusual, especially because conventional Pd supported catalysts are generally not used for this application due to a production of a high amount of polychlorinated compounds. These results showed that the laser pyrolysis method allows the synthesis of well dispersed titanium-based catalysts not previously reported in the literature.