Mesoporous zeolites are attractive hierarchically nanoporous crystalline materials that can be used as novel heterogeneous catalysts. In this work, mesoporous zeolites are used as supporting catalytic materials for metal nanoparticles inside the mesopores, resulting in bifunctional heterogeneous catalyst due to the catalytic function of metal nanoparticles and the intrinsic acidic sites on the zeolite framework. The resultant bifunctional catalysts are studied for selective C-C and C-H bonds activations in hydrogenative reforming of model hydrocarbon such as methylcyclopentane. The combination of acid sites and metal nanoparticles can enhance the catalytic activity with an order of magnitude as compared to the pure metal nanoparticles supported on the mesoporous silica. Depending on the catalyst combination, the reaction pathway can be totally changed to produce various products with high yields in a controlled manner. Furthermore, the reaction process is monitored by real-time surface vibrational sum-frequency generation spectroscopic studies to find a reaction intermediate and finally to build a reaction mechanism. The details on this research will be given in this presentation.

Enhancement of catalytic activity and control of reaction pathway for hydrocarbon reforming over mesoporous zeolites supporting metal nanoparticles

248th National Meeting (2014)

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