Structural Ni-Ni Pair Sites for Highly Active Hydrogenation of Nitriles to Primary Amines.

Supported metal pair sites have sparked interest due to their tremendous potential as bifunctional catalysts. Here, we report the structural Ni-Ni pair sites constructed in a well-defined nanocrystal phase of NiP. These Ni-Ni pair sites exhibited a remarkable product formation rate of 123 mol/mol/h for the hydrogenation of benzonitrile (BN) to benzylamine (BA).

Thermally induced intermetallic RhZn nanoparticles with high phase-purity for highly selective hydrogenation of acetylene.

Ordered MZn intermetallic phases with structurally isolated atom sites offer unique electronic and geometric structures for catalytic applications, but lack reliable industrial synthesis methods that avoid forming a disordered alloy with ill-defined composition. We developed a facile strategy for preparing well-defined MZn intermetallic nanoparticle (i-NP) catalysts from physical mixtures of monometallic M/SiO (M = Rh, Pd, Pt) and ZnO. The RhZn i-NPs with structurally isolated Rh atom sites had a high intrinsic selectivity to ethylene (91%) with extremely low C and oligomer formation, outperforming the reported intermetallic and alloy catalysts in acetylene semihydrogenation.

Imaging the dynamic influence of functional groups on metal-organic frameworks.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with different functional groups have wide applications, while the understanding of functionalization influences remains insufficient. Previous researches focused on the static changes in electronic structure or chemical environment, while it is unclear in the aspect of dynamic influence, especially in the direct imaging of dynamic changes after functionalization. Here we use integrated differential phase contrast scanning transmission electron microscopy (iDPC-STEM) to directly 'see' the rotation properties of benzene rings in the linkers of UiO-66, and observe the high correlation between local rigidity and the functional groups on the organic linkers.

Highly Efficient Hydrogenation of Nitroarenes by N-Doped Carbon-Supported Cobalt Single-Atom Catalyst in Ethanol/Water Mixed Solvent.

The cobalt single atoms supported on N-doped carbon (Co SAs/NC) were prepared by the direct pyrolysis of metal-organic framework (MOF) precursor. Compared with Co nanoparticle (NP) catalysts prepared by impregnation, the Co SAs/NC catalyst showed a much better performance in the selective hydrogenation of nitrobenzene, giving a specific activity 5.4 and 32.

Hollow and Yolk-Shell Co-N-C@SiO Nanoreactors: Controllable Synthesis with High Selectivity and Activity for Nitroarene Hydrogenation.

The use of hollow and yolk-shell nanocomposites is an effective route to enhance catalytic performance. A strategy that allows precise control of the nanocomposites was developed to synthesize novel hollow and yolk-shell SiO nanoreactors of Co-N-C@SiO, which used ZIF-67 as the hard template and also as the source for active sites. A size dependence of the nanoreactor structure was observed.

A general and facile strategy for precisely controlling the crystal size of monodispersed metal-organic frameworks via separating the nucleation and growth.

A novel and facile strategy was proposed for precisely controlling the crystal size of ZIF-8, ZnCo bimetallic ZIFs and also NPs@ZIF-8 by separating the nucleation and growth. The fundamentals of crystallization of this strategy were elaborately investigated, and the size effect on the internal diffusion was explored for a series of Pt@ZIF-8 catalysts.