Microcalorimetric studies of the iridium catalyst for hydrazine decomposition reaction

Microcalorimetric studies of H2, NH3 and O2 adsorption, as well as the NH3 decomposition activities evaluation were used to characterize the iridium catalysts for hydrazine decomposition with different supports (Al2O3, SiO2) and iridium contents (1.8, 10.8 and 22.1%). The higher H2 chemisorption amounts on Ir/Al2O3 catalysts than those on the corresponding Ir/SiO2 counterparts revealed that the strong interaction of iridium and Al2O3 led to higher dispersion of iridium on Ir/Al2O3 catalysts than on Ir/SiO2 catalysts. The larger increase in strong H2 adsorption sites on highly loaded Ir/Al2O3 than the corresponding Ir/SiO2 ones could be attributed to the interaction not only between iridium atoms but also between iridium and Al2O3. The microcalorimetric results for NH3 adsorption showed that no apparent chemisorption of NH3 existed on Ir/SiO2 catalysts while NH3 chemisorption amounts increased on Ir/Al2O3 catalysts with iridium loadings, which arose from the interaction of the catalysts support of Al2O3 with chloride anion. Both highly dispersed iridium active sites and chloride anion on Ir/Al2O3 catalysts could be beneficial to the intermediate NH3 decomposition in N2H4 decomposition. The similar O2 plots of differential heat versus normalized coverage on Ir/Al2O3 and Ir/SiO2 catalysts could not be due to the metal-support interaction, but to the formation of strong IrO bond.