Polymer and Membrane Design for Low Temperature Catalytic Reactions.

Catalytically active asymmetric membranes have been developed with high loadings of palladium nanoparticles located solely in the membrane's ultrathin skin layer. The manufacturing of these membranes requires polymers with functional groups, which can form insoluble complexes with palladium ions. Three polymers have been synthesized for this purpose and a complexation/nonsolvent induced phase separation followed by a palladium reduction step is carried out to prepare such membranes. Parameters to optimize the skin layer thickness and porosity, the palladium loading in this layer, and the palladium nanoparticles size are determined. The catalytic activity of the membranes is verified with the reduction of a nitro-compound and with a liquid phase Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reaction. Very low reaction times are observed.