Preparation of MOF Confined Ag Nanoparticles for the Highly Active, Size Selective Hydrogenation of Olefins

Abstract Catalysts with both high activity and good selectivity for hydrogenation of olefins to alkanes are of interest. Herein, MOF confined ultrafine Ag NPs (Ag@HKUST‐1) were synthesized by double‐solvent approach using HKUST‐1 as the template and support. HKUST‐1 with narrow cage size distribution (0.5 to 0.9 nm) confined the growth of Ag NPs, while the uniform pores prohibited the entrance of olefins with the molecular size lager than 5.0 Å, which endow the Ag@HKUST‐1 with high catalytic activity and size selectivity for hydrogenation reaction. The hydrogenation of eight kinds of olefins with different molecular size (1‐hexene, cyclohexene, 1‐octene, cyclooctene, styrene, 1‐decene, 1, 1‐diphenylethylene, and 1‐dodecene) catalyzed by Ag@HKUST‐1 confirmed this hypothesis. The olefins with molecular smaller than 5.0 Å were efficiently converted to the corresponding alkanes, whereas those greater than 5.0 Å exhibited extremely low conversation. The catalyst also exhibited high recycle stability in the hydrogenation of styrene.