Platinum-copper single atom alloy catalysts with high performance towards glycerol hydrogenolysis.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31862887.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-13685-2 and PMC identifier 6925196.
- 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
Selective hydrogenolysis of biomass-derived glycerol to propanediol is an important reaction to produce high value-added chemicals but remains a big challenge. Herein we report a PtCu single atom alloy (SAA) catalyst with single Pt atom dispersed on Cu nanoclusters, which exhibits dramatically boosted catalytic performance (yield: 98.8%) towards glycerol hydrogenolysis to 1,2-propanediol. Remarkably, the turnover frequency reaches up to 2.6 × 10<sup>3</sup> mol<sub>glycerol</sub>·mol<sub>PtCu-SAA</sub><sup>-1</sup>·h<sup>-1</sup>, which is to our knowledge the largest value among reported heterogeneous metal catalysts. Both in situ experimental studies and theoretical calculations verify interface sites of PtCu-SAA serve as intrinsic active sites, in which the single Pt atom facilitates the breakage of central C-H bond whilst the terminal C-O bond undergoes dissociation adsorption on adjacent Cu atom. This interfacial synergistic catalysis based on PtCu-SAA changes the reaction pathway with a decreased activation energy, which can be extended to other noble metal alloy systems.