Nickel Nanoparticles Dispersion on Carbon Molecular Sieve by Electroless Deposition

This work presents a novel one step process to synthesize nickel nanoparticles dispersed on activated carbon. This technique is widely used for the plating of metal surfaces and consists of the immersion of substrate on a stabilized bath that contains the metal precursor, a complexing agent, an additive for pH control, and chemical stabilizer to avoid the spontaneous reduction of metal in bath solution. By this process, nickel was dispersed on chemical activated carbon (carbon molecular sieve, CMS) obtaining a catalyst which showed better catalytic activity on benzene dehydrogenation than the observed for unsupported nickel nanoparticles and a commercial catalyst composed by nickel nanoparticles supported in Al2O3–SiO2.