Tunability of catalytic properties of Pd-based catalysts by rational control of strong metal and support interaction (SMSI) for selective hydrogenolyic C–C and C–O bond cleavage of ethylene glycol units in biomass molecules

Abstract

It is shown that the catalytic properties of Pd can be fine-tuned by rationally varying the metal–support interaction through the formation of bimetallic nanoparticles with a support after hydrogen reduction; in the hydrogenolysis of a –CHOHCHOH– vicinal diol unit, the ability to break the C–C bond over the C–O bond is found to increase significantly with the decrease in d-band filling, while the ability to break the C–O bond is enhanced by the upshift of the d-band center of modified Pd.