A nanostructured catalyst composed of Ru nanoparticles immobilized on poly(4-vinylpyridine) (PVPy) has been synthesized by NaBH₄ reduction of RuCl₃·3H₂O in the presence of the polymer in methanol at room temperature. TEM measurements show well-dispersed Ru nanoparticles with an average diameter of 3.1 nm. Both powder XRD patterns and XPS data indicate that the Ru particles are predominantly in the zerovalent state. The new catalyst is efficient for the hydrogenation of a wide variety of aromatic hydrocarbons and N-heteroaromatic compounds representative of components of petroleum-derived fuels. The experimental data indicate the existence of two distinct active sites in the nanostructure that lead to two parallel hydrogenation pathways, one for simple aromatics involving conventional homolytic hydrogen splitting on Ru and a second one for N-heteroaromatics taking place via a novel heterolytic hydrogen activation on the catalyst surface, assisted by the basic pyridine groups of the support.

Separations using polymer membranes is a rapidly growing field due to membrane advantages such as energy efficiency, environmental friendliness, and compact size. Among the materials considered for membrane use are perfluoropolymers, which offer unprecedented stability for operation in challenging conditions such as those required in industrial gas separations. Despite this favorable attribute, the relative lack of material choices has hindered perfluoropolymer adoption as membranes. Here, we report gas transport properties in a new family of amorphous perfluorodioxolane copolymers that show permselectivities above the polymer upper bound for important gas pairs (e.g., He/CH₄, H₂/CH₄, N₂/CH₄). For example, the most selective of these membranes has a He/CH₄ selectivity more than 5 times higher than any previously reported for a perfluoropolymer. The new copolymer membranes exhibit tunable transport properties through variation in the amount of monomers that function as “selective enhancers”. Such monomers, which show a tendency to crystalize as homopolymers, improve chain packing in the copolymer, enhancing the membrane ability to sieve molecules by size. In this manner, these materials open a new route to achieving tailored performance with inherently stable membranes. Moreover, these copolymers are soluble in fluorinated solvents, and thus are solution processable making their scale-up and conversion to membrane devices straightforward using existing industry methods.

A new catalyst composed of Pd nanoparticles supported on MgO has been prepared by the room temperature NaBH₄ reduction of Na₂PdCl₄ in methanol in the presence of the support. TEM measurements reveal well-dispersed Pd particles of mean diameter 1.7 nm attached to the MgO surface. Further characterization was achieved by ICP-AES, XPS, XRD, H₂ pulse chemisorption and H₂-TPR. The new catalyst is efficient for the regioselective hydrogenation of the heterocyclic ring of quinolines, as well as for the mild reduction of a variety of alkenes representative of fuel components, and the partial saturation of biodiesel. The new material is considerably more reactive than commercial Pd/SiO₂ and Pd/Al₂O₃ catalysts under analogous reaction conditions.