Interfacial synergism of hollow mesoporous Pt/WOx/SiO2-TiO2 catalysts enable highly selective hydrogenolysis of glycerol to 1,3-propanediol

The selective hydrogenolysis of glycerol exhibits great prospects, while the catalysts with high selectivity and activity are still missing and need to be created urgently. Herein, we report the synthesis of hollow mesoporous Pt/WOxSiO2-TiO2 nanosphere catalysts with bi-functional interfaces synergistically for high efficiency conversion of glycerol to 1,3-propanediol. The hollow mesoporous Pt/WOxSiO2-TiO2 catalysts show a typical brick-concrete liked framework with a high surface area (179.3 m2g·1), large mesopore size (10.6 nm), uniform particle size (~ 400 nm), and ultrathin shell thickness (~ 75 nm). The brick anatase nanocrystals and concrete amorphous SiO2 networks can selectively rivet Pt nanoparticles and WOx nanocluster species, respectively, thus constructing two interfaces for effective adsorption, rapidly catalytic dehydration and hydrogenation processes. The hollow mesoporous Pt/WOxSiO2-TiO2 catalysts deliver a high selectivity of 53.8% for 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PDO) at a very high glycerol conversion of 85.0%. As a result, a favorable 1,3-PDO yield of 45.7% can be obtained with excellent stability, which is among the best performances of previously reported catalysts. This work paves a new way to synthesize catalysts with high selectivity, high activity and high stability.