Nano porous PtRu alloy catalyst with enhanced synergic effect for selective hydrogenation of chloronitrobenzene

Selective hydrogenation of chloronitrobenzene (CNB) to chloroaniline (CAN) is a critical reaction for producing multiple valuable fine chemicals. Inhibiting the dechlorination is extremely vital for this reaction. In this work, we synthesize supported nano porous PtRu alloy catalyst for this catalytic reaction. The special structure of alloy catalyst, mutual-accessible Ru enriched surface and Pt enriched core, strengthens the synergic effect between Ru and Pt, thus improves the catalytic performance. As a result, 100% of o-chloronitrobenzene (o-CNB) conversion and 99.9% of o-chloroaniline (o-CAN) selectivity are achieved by the most optimal catalyst. Besides, the catalyst shows superior selectivity of o-CAN (98%) even under harsh reaction conditions such as high temperature of 150 °C and high pressure of 6 MPa. The excellent catalytic performance is also observed in selective hydrogenation of m-chloronitrobenzene (m-CNB) and p-chloronitrobenzene (p-CNB) as well.