| This thesis presents the systematic evaluation of palladium nanoparticles functionalized with well-defined small organic ligands that can provide a spatial control in the surrounding environment of nanoparticle catalyst surfaces. Various thiolate ligand-capped palladium nanoparticles are produced by using different S-alkylthiosufate ligand precursors in a two-phase system composed of toluene and water. These palladium nanoparticles are then characterized using transmission electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, NMR, FT-IR, and UV-vis spectroscopy. The catalysis studies on alkanethiolate-capped palladium nanoparticles with different ligand structures (linear alkyl vs cyclohexyl vs phenyl) show that the chemical and structural composition of a monolayer surrounding the palladium nanoparticles greatly influences the overall activity and selectivity of nanoparticle catalysts for the hydrogenation, isomerization, and hydrogenolysis of allylic alcohols. Especially, the effect of non-covalent interactions between surface ligands and incoming substrates in the near-surface environment is observed. Furthermore, the catalytic properties of &ohgr;-carboxylate-functionalized alkanethiolate-capped palladium nanoparticles are studied for the biphasic reactions of hydrophobic allylic alcohols that are immiscible in aqueous solution. The systematic investigations on the influence of pH and substrate size are performed to check the utility of structurally stable and water-soluble palladium nanoparticles as new micellar catalysts. |
