Role of surface defects of carbon nanotubes on catalytic performance of barium promoted ruthenium catalyst for ammonia synthesis

Abstract Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with abundant surface defects are prepared by a liquid oxidation and thermal annealing method. The defective CNTs-D supported Ba–Ru/CNTs-D catalysts exhibit superior catalytic performance in ammonia synthesis with a TOF be increased up to 0.30 s −1 , which is 2.5 times of oxidized CNTs-O supported Ba–Ru/CNTs-O catalysts and 5 times of the Ba–Ru/CNTs. The characterizations by CO chemisorption, transmission electron microscope, Raman, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed that the uniformly well dispersed Ru NPs can be stabilized on the defective sites of CNTs-D. The great improvement of the catalytic performance and stability of the Ba–Ru/CNTs-D is contributed to the strong interaction between Ru NPs and surface defect of the CNTs.