Anchoring PdAg alloys on self-crosslinked carbon dots as efficient catalysts for formic acid dehydrogenation under ambient conditions

Formic acid (FA) is a potential hydrogen storage material for hydrogen storage and production under moderate circumstances using a catalytic method. Exploring excellent catalysts to achieve rapid FA dehydrogenation remains a challenge for a low-carbon economy. In this work, a series of PdAg alloys anchored on N-doped carbon dots (CDs) were used for efficient FA dehydrogenation at ambient temperature. The optimized Pd0.9Ag0.1/CDs catalyst can catalyze complete dehydrogenation of FA in 9.5 min with a TOF value of 617 h−1 at 298 K. Experiments reveal that the high activity of FA dehydrogenation is attributed to the electron transfer in PdAg alloys and the strong electronic interaction between PdAg alloys and CDs supports. Furthermore, the CDs support restricts the growth and aggregation of PdAg nanoparticles during the reaction of FA dehydrogenation. This work provides a simple approach to the fabrication of CDs supported highly distributed PdAg alloy catalysts for efficient utilization in the hydrogen energy field.