Cellulose Nanocrystal‐supported Pd‐Co Bimetallic Catalyst for Selective Hydrogenation of 3‐Nitrostyrene

Abstract Herein, we prepared an even‐dispersed bimetallic Pd−Co nanoparticles supported on cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) matrix (denoted as Pd−Co/CNC‐x; x is the added Co/Pd molar ratio during the preparation) for selective hydrogenation of 3‐nitrostyrene (NS). The optimized Pd−Co/CNC‐2.5 catalyst showed the highest catalytic activity with TOF value of 2570 h −1 and 94.1% selectivity of 3‐ethylnitrobenzene (ENB) in methanol under 3 bar H 2 at 50 °C. The reaction pathway revealed that the Pd−Co/CNC‐2.5 catalyst exhibited the high priority on the C=C bonds hydrogenation, while the 3‐ethylaniline (EA) was the over‐hydrogenation product from NS via ENB. The structure‐activity relationship study demonstrated that the synergistic effect of Pd−Co in Pd−Co/CNC‐2.5 played a crucial role in the hydrogenation of NS. Moreover, compared to the monometallic Pd/CNC catalyst, the kinetic analysis revealed a relative lower reaction barrier of CNC supported Pd−Co nanoparticles. This exploration will provide a guidance for the catalyst construction in the selective hydrogenation of the unsaturated C=C bonds.