Activating the Pd-Based catalysts via tailoring reaction interface towards formic acid dehydrogenation

Abstract Formic acid dehydrogenation (FAD) offers an ideal route for hydrogen production, where searching for efficient and selective catalysts is imperative. However, the current state-of-the-art Pd-based metallic catalysts severely suffer from low catalytic efficiency and self-poisoning, owning to the FA dehydration side reaction. In this work, we design PANI-Pd/C composite catalysts via interfacial microenvironment regulation technique. The as-prepared 0.01-PANI-Pd/C catalyst exhibits high turnover frequency (TOF, 5654 h−1) and excellent resistance to CO poisoning. The merit of polyaniline can be ascribed to: a) construction of abundant Pd–PdO interfaces; b) capturing H+ and accelerating the formation of the reactive species.