Issue 20, 2014

Confined synthesis of ultrafine Ru–B amorphous alloy and its catalytic behavior toward selective hydrogenation of benzene

Abstract

How to control the size and morphology of metal nanocatalysts is of vital importance in enhancing their catalytic performance. In this work, uniform and ultrafine Ru–B amorphous alloy nanoparticles (NPs) supported on titanate nanosheets were fabricated via a confined synthesis in titanate nanotubes (TNTs) followed by unwrapping the tube to sheetlike titanate (TNS) (denoted as Ru–B/TNS), which exhibit excellent catalytic performance toward the selective hydrogenation of benzene to cyclohexene (yieldcyclohexene: 50.7%) without any additives. HRTEM images show the resulting Ru–B NPs are highly dispersed on the titanate nanosheets (particle size: 2.5 nm), with a low Ru–Ru coordination number revealed by EXAFS. Moreover, XPS demonstrates the surface-enriched B element and a strong electron transfer from B to Ru, which facilitates the formation and desorption of cyclohexene on the Ru active-sites, accounting for the significantly enhanced catalytic behavior. The surfactant-free confined synthesis and additive-free catalytic system make the Ru–B/TNS catalyst a promising candidate for the selective hydrogenation of benzene.

Graphical abstract: Confined synthesis of ultrafine Ru–B amorphous alloy and its catalytic behavior toward selective hydrogenation of benzene

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 Jan 2014
Accepted
27 Feb 2014
First published
27 Feb 2014

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2014,2, 7570-7577

Confined synthesis of ultrafine Ru–B amorphous alloy and its catalytic behavior toward selective hydrogenation of benzene

J. Liu, S. He, C. Li, F. Wang, M. Wei, D. G. Evans and X. Duan, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2014, 2, 7570 DOI: 10.1039/C4TA00023D

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements