Boosting the selectivity of Pt catalysts for cinnamaldehyde hydrogenation to cinnamylalcohol by surface oxidation of SiC support

The selective hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde (CAL) is very important, but still remains challenging due to the coexistence of easily hydrogenated CC and CO bonds in CAL molecule. In this work, we report that employing partially oxidized SiC (SiC–O) as the support of Pt can evidently enhance the catalytic selectivity for the selective hydrogenation of CO in CAL. Further investigations show that the partially oxidized SiC surface can change the adsorption mode of CAL and facilitate the selective adsorption of CO in CAL. During the catalytic process, H2 was dissociated on Pt particles while CAL was mainly adsorbed and activated on the surface of support. The active H species generated on the Pt surface then spilled over to the support surface and reacted with the CO bond activated by the support surface to selectively form cinnamylalcohol. The present work revealed an important cooperative catalysis of metal and SiC, which would be helpful to design and application of more SiC-based catalysts.