Well-dispersed bimetallic nanoparticles confined in mesoporous metal oxides and their optimized catalytic activity for nitrobenzene hydrogenation

Well-dispersed bimetallic nanoparticles (BMNPs = PtPd/AuPd/AuPt) confined in mesoporous metal oxides (MMOs = TiO2/Al2O3/SiO2/ZrO2) are synthesized by a general and mild one-step sol-gel strategy. This approach allows facile control over the compositional parameter of the supported BMNPs and the MMOs. Moreover, we can also control the formation of the alloy by simply adjusting the loading content. The catalytic results of PtPd-MMO composites in the hydrogenation of nitrobenzene have shown that the performance is highly composition-dependent and support-dependent with Pt1Pd3-m-SiO2 showing the optimum activity.