Norizwan Nordin, Nur Jamilin Rosyidah Uzma, Hanani Yazid and Abdul Mutalib Md Jani
Keywords: Gold catalyst; aluminium oxide membrane
Abstract: The use of catalyst is to speed up a chemical reaction or to make a reaction cost effective by lowering the energy needed for a reaction to occur. In industries, catalysts can be referred as ‘performance chemicals’, which enhance the processing of other chemicals. Gold (Au) nanoparticles is an example of metal catalyst, which efficiently can enhanced the catalytic reaction at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. Versatile application of the gold nanoparticles catalyst can also been improved by depositing the Au nanoparticles on aluminium oxide support. The aluminium oxide as the support offers better dispersion of gold nanoparticles as well as increase the total surface area of the catalyst. The idea of this work is to fabricate aluminium oxide support in form of thin membrane by electrochemical anodization method for further deposition of the gold nanoparticles. This catalyst is in form of thin membrane, which will facilitates the removal of catalyst in liquid-phase catalytic reaction compared to conventional powdered catalyst. Effective removal of the catalyst from the reaction medium is necessary to further reuse the catalyst for another catalytic cycle.