Significance of surface oxygen-containing groups and heteroatom P species in switching the selectivity of Pt/C catalyst in hydrogenation of 3-nitrostyrene

The selectivity of 3-nitrostyrene (NS) hydrogenation over 0.5 wt-% Pt catalysts supported on carbon materials can be switched simply by changing reduction temperature. When the reduction temperature was 150 degrees C, 1-ethyl-3-nitrobenzene (ENB) was mainly produced in a selectivity of 93% at a conversion of 95% (at 100 degrees C). When the reduction was conducted at a higher temperature of 450 degrees C, in contrast, the main product was switched to 3-aminostyrene (AS) in a selectivity of 96% at a conversion of 91%. That is, the Pt/C catalysts reduced at low and high temperatures could preferentially catalyze the hydrogenation of vinyl and nitro groups of NS, respectively. This switching of the product selectivity may be ascribed to actions of surface oxygen-containing functional groups and surface hetero P species. The quantity and nature of these surface species were examined in detail by a few different methods. For the low-temperature reduced catalyst, surface acidic groups present close to Pt nanoparticles (similar to 2 nm) would interact with the nitro group of a NS molecule and make its vinyl group more likely to interact with the surface active metal species of Pt nanoparticles; this facilitates the hydrogenation of the latter and produces ENB selectively. For the high-temperature reduced catalyst, however, P species would interact with Pt and form Pt-POx complex, on which a NS molecule is likely to be adsorbed with its nitro group, facilitating the selective production of AS via its hydrogenation. It is demonstrated that surface functional groups and surface hetero atoms (like P), in addition to main active metal species (like Pt), should have direct actions in the catalysis for such a catalyst that exposes a larger quantity of surface functional groups and/or hetero atoms compared to the number of supported metal nanoparticles. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.