Preparation of silica as catalyst supports with controlled surface property using continuous flow reactor

The application of continuous flow reactor in the synthesis of materials with controlled properties has attracted significant attentions in recent years. In this work, we demonstrated that surface functionalities of silica can be tuned with the aid of a segmented continuous flow reactor (SCFR). Infrared spectra showed that silica surface had a variety distribution of silanol groups which were controlled by the continuous flow technique. These silica samples were studied as Pd-based catalysts supports. A correlation between surface silanol groups and the growth of Pd metal nanoparticles were constructed with the aid of operando X-ray diffraction technique and scanning transmission electron microscopy. Solvent free aerobic oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzyl aldehyde was employed to investigate the catalytic performances of these catalysts.