Abstract: | A 10 w/o Pd/C catalyst from Johnson Matthey has been examined by three different techniques: chemisorption, line broadening of X-ray diffraction, and TEM (transmission electron microscopy) to investigate the size of the palladium crystallites. The dispersion of this catalyst was determined to be 20%. Among these techniques, the X-ray diffraction was found to be the most convenient method. Through this method, the dispersion of Pd was found to decrease on catalyzing hydroxylamine reactions at 330 K. The deactivation of Pd/C for these reactions was correlated to the sintering of palladium. H2 chemisorption at 373 K was found to be a good way to accurately measure the number of active palladium sites in the Pd/C catalysts. |