Single-site catalyst promoters accelerate metal-catalyzed nitroarene hydrogenation.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 29636468.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-03810-y and PMC identifier 5893533.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Atomically dispersed supported metal catalysts are drawing wide attention because of the opportunities they offer for new catalytic properties combined with efficient use of the metals. We extend this class of materials to catalysts that incorporate atomically dispersed metal atoms as promoters. The catalysts are used for the challenging nitroarene hydrogenation and found to have both high activity and selectivity. The promoters are single-site Sn on TiO<sub>2</sub> supports that incorporate metal nanoparticle catalysts. Represented as M/Sn-TiO<sub>2</sub> (M = Au, Ru, Pt, Ni), these catalysts decidedly outperform the unpromoted supported metals, even for hydrogenation of nitroarenes substituted with various reducible groups. The high activity and selectivity of these catalysts result from the creation of oxygen vacancies on the TiO<sub>2</sub> surface by single-site Sn, which leads to efficient, selective activation of the nitro group coupled with a reaction involving hydrogen atoms activated on metal nanoparticles.