Deciphering the role of amine in amino silane-functionalized Pd/rGO catalyst for formic acid decomposition at room temperature

Additive free, selective decomposition of formic acid to hydrogen and carbon dioxide at room temperature is still a challenging catalytic process which often requires noble metal catalyst (Pd, AuPd, AuPt) and sodium formate as an additive. Till date, catalyst design is targeted towards minimum noble metal usage along with incorporation of basic functionalities to produce in situ formate ion (key intermediate for dehydrogenation) from formic acid. In this work, we have studied the catalytic behaviour of amino silane-functionalized graphene oxide (GO) containing palladium nanoparticles for formic acid decomposition in ambient condition. By varying amine functionalization on GO and palladium content, the best performing catalyst was obtained with 5 wt% palladium loading. Additionally, it was observed for the first time that along with stability of a catalyst in reaction medium, its interaction with decomposed products, i.e., carbon dioxide with amine functional groups plays a crucial role in recyclability of a catalyst.