Platinum nanoparticles supported on mesocellular silica foams as highly efficient catalysts for enantioselective hydrogenation

Mesocellular silica foams (MCFs) with different pore size were synthesized and used as supports for Pt catalysts for enantioselective hydrogenation of ethyl pyruvate. The influences of the pore size of MCFs, the amount of Pt loading and H-2 pressure on catalytic performance of cinchonidine-modified Pt/MCFs were investigated. Both activity and enantioselectivity of the Pt/MCF catalyst increased with the increase in the pore size. These results were attributed to the fact that the larger mesopores facilitate intraparticle diffusion of bulky chiral modifier molecules and generate more chirally modified Pt sites. The performances of Pt/MCFs were compared to those of Pt supported on non-porous silica (Pt/SiO2) and commercial Pt/Al2O3 catalysts. The 1 wt% Pt/MCFs showed superior performance than the 1 wt% Pt/SiO2 and the commercial 1 wt% Pt/Al2O3 catalysts. Furthermore, the 0.6 wt% Pt/MCF exhibited higher activity and enantioselectivity than the commercial 5 wt% Pt/Al2O3, one of the most efficient heterogeneous catalysts for this reaction, in spite of a considerably less Pt loading. At optimized reaction conditions, the Pt/MCF catalyst gave enantiomeric excess of 96% at 100% conversion. They also maintained high enantioselectivity during 10 successive reaction cycles, exhibiting high reusability. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.