Dangsheng Su

Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, Dalian, China

Nanodiamonds (ND) are commercially available by detonation of explosives under oxygen-deficient conditions. The structure of these particles is a crystalline sp2 -bonded diamond core, surrounded by few layers of disordered sp2 /sp3 carbon, resulting in a variety of oxygen terminations on dangling bonds and defects on surface. The chemical nature of ND surface can be tailored by the surface sp /sp hybridization state, defect and decoration with various heteroatom functionalities. We have used surface-modified ND as catalyst and catalyst support for heterogeneous catalytic reactions that show unusual performance. For oxidative dehydrogenation of n-butane, the ND exhibited superior performance than other nanocarbon materials. ND also showed better performance in direct dehydrogenation of ethyl benzene to styrene; Nitrogen and boron doped annealed ND is also electro-active for ORR, but the performance is still needed to be optimized. The state-of-the-art of ND catalysis will be presented with an outlook for practical application.