Deposition of Pt clusters onto MOFs-derived CeO2 by ALD for selective hydrogenation of furfural

Highly dispersed Pt nanoclusters (<2 nm) are anchored onto MOF-derived CeO 2 via atomic layer deposition technique. • Pt clusters are deposited on MOFs-derived CeO 2 via atomic layer deposition. • Both AC-STEM and CO-DRIFTS confirm the existence of Pt clusters. • The porous structure and defect-rich of MOFs-derived CeO 2 are responsible for the small size of Pt. • The catalyst shows excellent activity and selectivity for the hydrogenation of furfural. • The excellent performance is related to the small size of Pt and rich oxygen vacancy. The selective hydrogenation of furfural (FAL) to furfuryl alcohol (FOL) in liquid phase has drawn tremendous attention, while designing and preparing efficient catalysts with satisfied selectivity remains a challenge due to the coexistence of two conjugated C O and C C groups within FAL molecule. This work has depicted a simple-yet-effective strategy to load small sized Pt (<2 nm) onto MOFs-derived CeO 2 via atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique. Special aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (AC-STEM) confirmed the dominant presence of Pt nanoclusters. Physicochemical properties of Pt/M-CeO 2 were investigated by a various of characterizations, inclusive of XRD, SEM, TEM, BET, XPS, Raman, CO-DRIFTS and FAL-DRIFTS. In comparison to Pt/commercial CeO 2 (Pt/C-CeO 2 ), the Pt/M-CeO 2 one displayed the superior catalytic activity, yielding 100% conversion of FAL and 98% selectivity to FOL. The high catalytic activity of Pt/M-CeO 2 can be reasonably assigned to Pt clusters with clean surface, strongly interacting between Pt and M-CeO 2 , and rich oxygen vacancy/porous structure of the M-CeO 2 support. This work highlights an effective approach towards deposition of noble metal clusters onto MOFs-derived metal oxides, offering an alternative way to reasonable design highly efficient catalyst in selective hydrogenation reactions.