Highly dispersed Pt on partial deligandation of Ce-MOFs for furfural selective hydrogenation

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been extensively investigated as noble metal nanoparticle supports for selective hydrogenations. However, because of small-sized micropores and organic ligands present in MOFs, interactions between inorganic nodes and noble metals are normally weak and the accessibility of active sites is seriously limited. To address these problems, in this study, a partial deligandation strategy is proposed where Pt/CeO2-270 is obtained by a partial decomposition of Ce-MOFs at 270 °C, then the Pt nanoparticles are deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) method. In comparison with the full deligandation of Ce-MOFs at 600 °C (CeO2-600), the CeO2-270 catalyst with residual organic ligands exhibits larger surface area, extensive porous structure, abundant Ce3+ and oxygen vacancy, which stabilize the highly dispersed small Pt nanopartciles. These unique structural features enable the Pt/CeO2-270 catalyst to display different furfural (FAL) adsorption configuration, and show excellent FAL conversion (100%) and high selectivity (97.3%) for furfuryl alcohol (FOL). This work provides a strategy to support highly dispersed Pt nanoparticles on MOFs-derived porous materials prepared by partial deligandation strategy, achieving excellent catalytic performance and chemoselectivity for selective hydrogenation reactions.