Bacteria are used to ‘grow’ and scaffold precious metal nanoparticles possessing certain catalytic activities. Focusing on Escherichia coli, this thesis aims to investigate the catalytic behaviours of E. coli-supported palladium (bio-Pd/E. coli) or bimetallic gold-palladium (bio- AuPd/E. coli) in hydrogenations and oxidations operated in laboratory-scale three-phase slurry reactors. A discussion of hydrodynamics, mass transfer, reaction mechanisms and corresponding reaction performance is systematically presented for two major industrially important reactions: soybean oil hydrogenation and benzyl alcohol oxidation. Thermogravimetric analysis indicated a suitable operating temperature of below 175\(^0\)C for the E. coli-supported catalyst. A loading of 5 wt%Pd on E. coli showed an average particle size of 4.31 nm estimated by TEM measurements and a crystallite size of 4.12 nm using Scherrer’s equation from obtained X-ray powder diffraction data. This was smaller than an active particle diameter of 12.77 nm for 5wt%Pd/Al\(_2\)O\(_3\) (determined by CO chemisorption). It is concluded that biomass-supported precious metal catalyst is an environmentally attractive alternative to conventional heterogeneous catalyst for application in industrial catalytic processes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:600374 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Zhu, Ju |
| Publisher | University of Birmingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5009/ |
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