Unexpectedly selective hydrogenation of phenylacetylene to styrene on titania supported platinum photocatalyst under 385 nm monochromatic light irradiation

Conversion of alkynes to alkenes by photocatalysis has inspired extensive interest, but it is still challenging to obtain both high conversion and selectivity. Here we first demonstrate the photocatalytic conversion of phenylacetylene (PLE) to styrene (STE) with both high conversion and selectivity by using the titania (TiO2) supported platinum (Pt) as photocatalyst under 385 nm monochromatic light irradiation. It is demonstrated that the conversion rate of PLE is strongly dependent on the content of Pt cocatalyst loaded on the surface of TiO2. Based on our optimization, the conversion of PLE and the selectivity towards STE on the 1 wt% Pt/TiO2 photocatalyst can unexpectedly reach as high as 92.4% and 91.3%, respectively. The highly selective photocatalytic hydrogenation can well be extended to the conversion of other typical alkynes to alkenes, demonstrating the generality of selective hydrogenation of C≡C over the Pt/TiO2 photocatalyst.