Superhydrophobic Pt@SBA-15 catalyst for hydrogen water isotope exchange reactions

In this work, Santa Barbara amorphous-15 (SBA-15) mesoporous silica was modified to fabricate hydrophobic microscopic reaction environments that enhanced the catalytic activity of the liquid phase catalytic exchange (LPCE) reaction. The hydrophobicity or hydrophilicity of the environments synthesized using modified SBA-15 was verified by conducting N2 and water vapor adsorption-desorption experiments. A porous composite catalyst, Pt@SBA-15-x/PVDF, was synthesized via a two-solvent method. The water contact angle of Pt-modified SBA-15 was 152°, proving its superhydrophobicity and granting it excellent catalytic performance for LPCE techniques in hydrogen-water isotope exchange processes. The catalytic performance of the hydrophobic catalyst did not decrease significantly after 30 days of usage.