Enhanced Chemoselective Hydrogenation of Cinnamaldehyde via Pt-Fe/Fe-NTA Nanocatalysts Under Low Temperature

Selective catalytic hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde is an important chemical reaction process for the preparation of high-value chemical products. However, the hydrogenation of the C=O group in cinnamaldehyde is not affected by the thermodynamics, which causes the C=O double bond in its molecular structure difficult to be hydrogenated. In this work, Pt-Fe/Fe-NTA materials were prepared by a simple impregnation reduction method, and used as highly efficient catalysts for chemoselective hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde. Built on a series of characterization technologies including XRD, FT-IR, XPS, SEM, and HRTEM the micro-structure and properties of Pt-Fe/Fe-NTA nanocatalysts were studied in detail. The experimental results suggest that the excellent catalytic performance of Pt-Fe/Fe-NTA catalysts mainly comes from the electron-rich property of the active center Pt and the existence of the surface Fe species, which both contribute to enhance the chemisorption of the C=O double bond in cinnamaldehyde and to improve the selectivity of cinnamyl alcohol. Under optimal reaction conditions, a cinnamaldehyde conversion of 90.8% and a selectivity to cinnamyl alcohol of 90.9%, respectively were achieved, with the turnover frequency up to 1489 h. In addition, a possible catalytic reaction mechanism of hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde on Pt-Fe/Fe-NTA catalysts was proposed. Graphic abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.] Pt nanocatalyst supported by Fe-NTA nanorods was synthesized. The obtained Pt-Fe/Fe-NTA catalyst exhibits excellent catalytic activity (TOF=1489 h-1) and superior catalytic selectivity to cinnamal alcohols (90.9%) at 40 °C for chemoselective hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde.