Highly dispersed ultrafine palladium nanoparticles encapsulated in a triazinyl functionalized porous organic polymer as a highly efficient catalyst for transfer hydrogenation of aldehydes

Fabrication of highly dispersed ultrafine noble metal nanoparticle (NMNP) based catalysts with high stability and excellent catalytic performance is a challenging issue for heterogeneous catalysis. As an alternative complement to existing solutions, herein, we designed and synthesized a stable triazinyl-pentaerythritol porous organic polymer (TP-POP) through a facile polycondensation between cyanuric chloride and pentaerythritol. The obtained TP-POP material has a three-dimensional folded structure, rich triazinyl groups, abundant hydrophobic pores and high thermal stability. Ultrafine Pd NPs with a narrow size distribution (1.4-2.8 nm) are then successfully confined in the organic pores of the TP-POP, through a reversed double solvent approach (RDSA). It is worth noting that the current strategy can effectively confine Pd NPs in the inner space of the TP-POP, and successfully avoids the agglomeration of Pd NPs as compared with the common impregnation-reduction method. The as-prepared Pd@TP-POP catalyst shows excellent catalytic activity in the reduction of 4-nitrophenol and transfer hydrogenation of aromatic aldehydes under very mild conditions. The excellent performance of the Pd@TP-POP catalyst is attributed to the abundant mesopores of the TP-POP which can enhance the accessibility of the highly dispersed ultrafine Pd NP active sites that are confined in the organic pores. More importantly, the Pd@TP-POP catalyst is easily recycled and highly stable without loss of its catalytic activity even after ten reaction cycles. Therefore, this study provides a new platform for designing and fabricating stable POP materials to confine size-controlled NMNPs with superior catalytic performance for various potential catalysis applications.