Synthesis of layered double hydroxide-supported platinum nanocatalyst for highly efficient and selective hydrogenation of nitroaromatics

In this work, highly dispersed platinum nanoclusters (or single atoms) supported on layered double hydroxides (Pt/FeNi-LDHs, Pt/FeCo-LDHs, Pt/CoNi-LDHs) are synthesized. The as-prepared catalysts are used for the selective hydrogenation of nitroaromatics, the catalysts showed high activity, selectivity and stability. The as-synthesized catalysts are characterized by thermal-gravity (TG), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscope (TEM), high resolution TEM (HRTEM), scanning TEM (STEM), STEM-EDS elemental analysis and inductively coupled plasma emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) methods, which prove that the Pt species are highly dispersed on the support. Take p-nitroacetophenone reduction as an example, the 0.4%Pt/FeNi-LDHs catalyst also shows excellent catalytic performance (conversion = 98.2%, turnover frequency (TOF) = 1100.5 h−1) and high selectivity to p-aminoacetophenone (93.8%) among these as-prepared catalysts even at low temperature (60 °C). Its excellent performance is probably due to the uniform distribution of the platinum species and the interaction of Pt–FeNi-LDHs conducive to the selective hydrogenation of –NO2 groups.