Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) as emerging porous materials in the last two decades have attracted tremendous research interest due to their structural diversity, flexibility and tailorability as well as high porosity. Many applications have been demonstrated in gas storage and separation, selective heterogeneous catalysis, carbon dioxide capture, and guest dependent luminescence. Compared to zeolites, MOFs as hosts of metal nanoparticles (NPs) have the advantage of combining the microporous confinement for the NPs and the functionality that can be introduced by the organic linker. Here, we reported the use of a solution phase impregnation method to introduce ultrafine Pt NPs inside MOF cages without Pt NPs aggregation on the external surface of framework. We further tested the importance of the NPs inside the cage of MOFs and its application in chemical reactions. We found that both high selectivity to cinnamyl alcohol and high conversion of cinnamaldehyde can be achieved using the MOF-confined Pt nanocluster catalyst, while we could not achieve high cinnamyl alcohol selectivity on Pt NCs supported on the external surface of the MOF. The catalyst can be recycled ten times without any loss in its activity and selectivity. To confirm the stability of the recycled catalysts, we conducted kinetic studies for the first 20 hours of reaction during four recycle runs on the catalyst. Both the conversion and selectivity are almost overlapping for the four runs, which indicates the catalyst is very stable under the employed reaction conditions.

Enhanced selectivity for platinum nanoclusters confined in the cavities of metal organic frameworks

248th National Meeting (2014)

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