Pt-supported Spherical Mesoporous Silica as a Nanosized Catalyst for Efficient Liquid-Phase Hydrogenation

Deciphering nanoconfinement effects on molecular orientation and reaction intermediate by single molecule imaging

“…Confining catalytic active centres in well-defined space is a rational strategy that we have learnt from nature’s catalysts, enzymes, for designing effective catalysts. Nanoporous materials, such as zeolites, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and covalent-organic frameworks (COFs), have contributed to improving the performance of many catalytic systems by assisting in the chemical bond formation/breaking 1–4 , altering product selectivity 5–7 , and/or optimising mass transport 8–10 and adsorption–desorption equilibrium 11,12 . Despite intensive research efforts with either theoretical calculations in simplified systems 13–16 or experimental measurements at the ensemble level 17–21 , the quantitative understanding of the nanoconfinement effects in catalysis at the molecular level remains largely unexplored experimentally.…”

Synthesis of hollow and rattle-type mesoporous silica spheres by treating layered mesoporous silica with a basic solution, and using the spheres as microreactors for two-phase reactions

“…Mesoporous silica materials can be produced with different shapes and structures so that they have novel functions for use in new applications. For example, nanosized particles 3,4 have been reported to be highly active catalysts 5,6 and have been used as carriers in drug delivery systems, [7][8][9] and mesoporous membranes have been used to separate gases. 10,11 A hollow sphere is an attractive shape for mesoporous silica, and many methods for fabricating hollow mesoporous silica spheres have been reported.…”