The ability to control fundamental properties (e.g., particle size, surface structure, and metal-oxide interface) in order to design highly selective heterogeneous catalysts would greatly reduce energy intensive separations. Particle size dependence (i.e., structure sensitivity) upon selectivity can now be examined with well defined nanoparticles (NPs) because of advances in synthetic chemistry. Colloidal chemistry has provided means for synthesizing monodisperse Pt NPs as small as ~2 nm. 1,2 Using a dendrimer templated approach, Pt NPs smaller than 1 nm -a new size regime for studying size induced effects in heterogeneous catalysis -can be synthesized (Scheme 1). 3,4 In this contribution, we report that ring opening for pyrrole hydrogenation is distinctly different for Pt NPs smaller than 2 nm. This insight has not been demonstrated for hydrogenation of cyclic heteroatom bonds to the best of our knowledge. This finding adds fundamental insight into hydrodenitrogenation (HDN) chemistry, which is important for fuel processing and involves removal of N-containing organics. Advances in HDN catalysis are needed to meet new fuel quality regulations because N-containing organics inhibit hydrodesulfurization (HDS) through competitive adsorption 5 and poison acid catalysts 6 , which are used for downstream processing and as supports for HDS catalysts. Pyrrole was selected as the reactant because organics with 5-member N-containing rings are the most common components in fuel. 7,8 Scheme 1. Strategy for Pt NP size control.Pt NPs between 0.8 and 5.0 nm were synthesized by two techniques. For ultrasmall NPs, fourth generation hydroxyl terminated polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers were used as the templating and capping agent. 4 Synthesis and characterization of Pt 20 and Pt 40 NPs (subscripts denote the average number of metal atoms per NP) have been described. 4,9 The average number of metal atoms per NP is controlled by the Pt ion to dendrimer ratio. Due to difficulties in obtaining accurate size distributions from TEM, sizes were calculated from the average number of metal ions added per dendrimer, which was proven as accurate by X-ray absorption studies. 10 Sizes of Pt 20 and Pt 40 NPs were calculated to be 0.8 and 1.0 nm, respectively. 11 A TEM image ( Figure 1a) of the Pt 60 NPs showed that the Pt size was 1.95 ± 0.27 nm. This size is larger than that expected from the Pt ion to dendrimer ratio and is caused by formation of interdendrimer complexes because the number of Pt atoms per dendrimer approached the number (62) of available internal tertiary amine groups. Pt NPs (1.5, 2.9, and 5.0 nm) were synthesized with polyvinylpyrolidone (PVP) by existing procedures 1,2 with a TEM image in Figure 1b Pt NPs were loaded onto SBA-15 silica (TEM image in Figure 1c for 1.5 nm Pt NPs). For PVP capped NPs, H 2 chemisorption indicated that Pt dispersion decreased as the NP size increased (Table S1). However, reliable dispersion measurements could not be obtained by this method for dendrimer encapsulated Pt NPs so ethylene hydr...