Palladium-Gallium Intermetallic Compound with Unique Ability to Activate Water for Catalytic Steam Reforming of 1,2-Dichloroethane.

Chlorinated volatile organic compounds (CVOCs) exert a big hazard to public health and the atmosphere environment. The conventional way of eliminating CVOCs at the emission source is by exhausting liquid recovery. Owing to the complexity and cost of purification, however, the collected CVOCs are difficult to reuse as raw materials. Herein, this study puts forward an innovative approach for enhancing the usage efficiencies of recovered CVOCs that converted the CVOCs into syngas through catalytic steam reforming and employed the yielded syngas as clean and value-added chemicals. To study the feasibility of such a technique, steam reforming of 1,2-dichloroethane (1,2-DCE) was performed over the supported intermetallic compound catalyst (Pd5Ga3/TiO2), which exhibited a remarkable catalytic efficiency with a 1,2-DCE conversion of 88.9% at 550 °C and a carbon monoxide selectivity of 77.8%. Moreover, no distinct change in catalytic activity over the bimetallic catalyst during the stability test at 550 °C indicated its excellent chlorine and coke resistance ability. The synergistic interaction of the Pd5Ga3 greatly promoted the adsorption and activation of H2O to form distinctive hydrogen-bond hydroxyl groups, which could be exchanged with a Cl atom that promoted the rupture of C-Cl bonds. The Pd5Ga3/TiO2 catalyst converted both trichloroethylene (TCE) and chlorobenzene (CB) with conversion efficiencies of above 99.8% and 82.0% at 600 °C, while maintaining remarkable (CO + H2) yields. This work opens a promising pathway for developing antichlorine and coke poisoning catalyst and related technology for the resource utilization of CVOCs.