Tuning the catalytic activities of supported metal nanoparticles can be achieved by manipulating their structural properties using an appropriate design and synthesis strategy. Each step in a catalyst synthesis method can potentially play an important role in preparing the most efficient catalyst for a particular chemical reaction. Here we report the careful manipulation of the post-synthetic heat treatment procedure, together with control over the the amount of metal loading, to prepare a highly efficient 0.2 wt.% Pt/TiO2 catalyst for the chemoselective hydrogenation of 3nitrostyrene. We found that for Pt/TiO2 catalysts with 0.2 and 0.5wt.% loading levels, reduction alone at 450 °C induces the coverage of Pt nanoparticles by TiOx through a strong metal support interaction which is detrimental for their catalytic activities. However, this surface coverage can be avoided by combining a calcination treatment at 450 °C with a subsequent reduction treatment at 450 °C allowing us to prepare a exceptionally active Pt/TiO2 catalyst with the optimum Pt distribution. Detailed characterisation of these catalysts has revealed that the peripheral sites at the Pt metal/TiO2 support interface are the most likely active sites for this hydrogenation reaction.

The introduction of small quantities of tertiary base metals into supported AuPd nanoparticles is found to result in improved catalytic performance towards the direct synthesis of H2O2 compared to the...

Lanthanum modified Fe-ZSM-5 catalyst can both increase selective methane oxidation performance and decrease H2O2 consumption.

Aliphatic and aromatic carboxylic acids can be quantitatively converted to the corresponding nitriles in the presence of catalysts using acetonitrile both as a solvent and reactant at 200 °C. This transformation is based on the acid–nitrile exchange (i.e., transnitrilation) and uses a nontoxic and water resistant catalyst, indium trichloride (InCl3). The mechanism of the transnitrilation was investigated both experimentally and computationally and compared to the previously proposed mechanism. In contrast to the usually assumed formation of amide as an intermediate, transnitrilation is an equilibrium reaction and proceeds via an equilibrated Mumm reaction with the formation of an imide as an intermediate. A simple and reversible mechanism was proposed for this reaction, which was validated by kinetics measurement and by density functional theory calculations of the reaction intermediates and reaction mechanisms.