Platinum–cobalt bimetallic nanoparticles in hollow carbon nanospheres for hydrogenolysis of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural

Abstract

The synthesis of 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF) from 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is a highly attractive route to a renewable fuel. However, achieving high yields in this reaction is a substantial challenge. Here it is described how PtCo bimetallic nanoparticles with diameters of 3.6 ± 0.7 nm can solve this problem. Over PtCo catalysts the conversion of HMF was 100% within 10 min and the yield to DMF reached 98% after 2 h, which substantially exceeds the best results reported in the literature. Moreover, the synthetic method can be generalized to other bimetallic nanoparticles encapsulated in hollow carbon spheres.

One-flow syntheses of diverse heterocyclic furan chemicals directly from fructose via tandem transformation platform

“…32,33 Recently, the outstanding hydrogenolysis of HMF to DMF with a 98% yield at 180°C for 2 h (10 bar H 2 gas) was reported, in which bimetallic nanoparticles in hollow carbon nanospheres were used to avoid the aggregation of the nanometal catalyst. 31 However, to the best our knowledge, our direct conversion from fructose to DMF is demonstrated for the first time with impressive performance under milder conditions, which is partly attributed to the efficient heat and mass transfer in the tube-in-tube microreactor. The overall conversion and yield of DMF directly from fructose by the integrated microfluidic transformation platform requires only simple operation and does not require any separation or removal steps of impurities from products.…”

“…The Pt metal catalyst nearly completed the conversion of HMF (98%) with a low yield of DMF (20%) due to the overhydrogenated product (1b, 53% yield), as expected. 31 In the bimetallic catalysts, the catalytic activity was generally higher than those of the monometallic catalysts. In particular, the Ru/Cu catalyst exhibited the best activity with a 78% yield of DMF, assuring that the Ru/Cu/Fe 3 O 4 / N-rGO catalyst was suitable for the microfluidic hydrogenolysis reaction in the ternary phase.…”

Characterization of nanomaterials with transmission electron microscopy

“…Figure 3 contains an example of such a STEM-EELS analysis that has been performed on a sample which was having a porous carbon (C) material functionalized with oxidized bimetallic FeCo-NPs. Such materials are promising candidates for the energy related applications [14]. It can be seen from Figure 3a that the oxidized FeCo-NPs were uniformly embedded in porous C material and while the corresponding EELS spectrum not only revealed the presence of all the expected elements in the sample but it also allowed the analysis of Fe-L23 and Co-L23 white lines to determine the oxidation states of both Fe and Co elements [13].…”

A synthetic strategy for carbon nanospheres impregnated with highly monodispersed metal nanoparticles

“…For example, Schüth and co-workers tested a method involving thermal reduction of metal ions confined in carbon nanopores to obtain noble-metal nanoparticles encapsulated in hollow carbon nanospheres. [23][24][25] However, no matter how the as-synthesized metal nanocrystals were prepared, by surfactant-assisted, microemulsion or polyol reaction methods, [26][27][28] the ligands stabilizing the as-synthesized metal nanocrystals weakened the interactions between metal active sites and reactants, resulting in a decreased catalytic activity. Furthermore, because of the lack of suitable functional groups in the inert pre-synthesized carbon spheres, the post-synthetically loaded metal nanoparticles were non-uniform and randomly distributed onto the carbon spheres.…”