Self-limiting growth of two-dimensional palladium between graphene oxide layers

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that electrochemical deposition of palladium between graphene oxide layers results in self-limiting growth of nanosheets, which are effective in catalysis and electrocatalysis applications.

Contribution

It reveals the mechanism of self-limiting growth of Pd nanosheets between GO layers and demonstrates their practical catalytic applications.

Findings

Pd nanosheets grow to a 5 nm thickness due to strong GO interaction

Liquid exfoliation isolates Pd nanosheets for catalysis

Pd-GO laminates show high catalytic efficiency

Abstract

The ability of different materials to display self-limiting growth has recently attracted enormous attention due to the importance of nanoscale materials in applications for catalysis, energy conversion, (opto)electronics, etc. Here, we show that electrochemical deposition of palladium (Pd) between graphene oxide (GO) sheets result in a self-limiting growth of 5 nm thin Pd nanosheets. The self-limiting growth is found to be a consequence of strong interaction of Pd with the confining GO sheets which results in bulk growth of Pd being energetically unfavourable for larger thicknesses. Furthermore, we have successfully carried out liquid exfoliation of the resulting Pd-GO laminates to isolate Pd nanosheets and demonstrated their high efficiency in continuous flow catalysis and electrocatalysis.