Gold supported on zirconia polymorphs for hydrogen generation from formic acid in base-free aqueous medium

Formic acid (FA) has attracted considerable attention as a safe and convenient hydrogen storage material for renewable energy transformation. However, development of an efficient heterogeneous catalyst for selective FA decomposition for ultraclean H2 gas in the absence of any alkalis or additives under mild conditions remains a major challenge. Based on our previous work on Au/ZrO2 as a robust and efficient catalyst for FA dehydrogenation in amine system, we report here ZrO2 with different nanocrystal polymorphs supported Au nanoparticles can achieve near completion of FA dehydrogenation in base-free aqueous medium. Of significant importance is that an excellent rate of up to 81.8 L H2 gAu−1 h−1 in open system and highly pressurized gas of 5.9 MPa in closed one can be readily attained at 80 °C for Au/m-ZrO2. In situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform (DRIFT) and CO2-temperature programmed desorption (TPD) techniques revealed that Au/m-ZrO2 exhibits a higher density of surface basic sites than Au/t-ZrO2 and Au/a-ZrO2. Basic sites in surface can substantially facilitate crucial FA deprotonation process which appears to be a key factor for achieving high dehydrogenation activity. The H/D exchange between solvent of H2O and substrate of FA was observed by the kinetic isotope effect experiments.