Effect of Nanoporous Structure on the Catalytic Activity of Nanoporous Palladium for Hydrogenation of Nitro Compounds

Abstract The effect of nanoporous structure on the catalytic activity of palladium catalysts for hydrogenation of nitro compounds was investigated. The order of the catalytic activity of the six types of nanoporous palladium (PdNPore) catalysts produced was very similar to the order of their specific surface area. Compared with other catalysts synthesized in this study, the PdNPore catalyst (Pd 86 Al 14 ) with a ligament size of 20 nm and specific surface area of 40.81 m 2 g −1 exhibited relatively high activity. The hydrogenation reactions of various nitro compounds proceeded smoothly with good functional group tolerance in the presence of this PdNPore catalyst under mild conditions. Moreover, the PdNPore catalyst could be simply recovered and reused several times without any loss of activity.