Catalytic hydrogen transfer of ketones over atomic layer deposited highly-dispersed platinum nanoparticles supported on multi-walled carbon nanotubes

• Highly-dispersed Pt nanoparticles were deposited on MWCNTs by ALD.
• The catalyst showed excellent performance for hydrogen transfer reduction.
• The high reactivity and selectivity was demonstrated for different ketones.
• The catalyst was reused 10 times without loss of activity.

Hydrogen transfer of ketones, catalyzed by highly-dispersed platinum nanoparticles supported on multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), was studied. Pt nanoparticles were deposited on gram quantities of non-functionalized MWCNTs by atomic layer deposition (ALD) at 300 °C, using (methylcyclopentadienyl) trimethylplatinum and oxygen as precursors. TEM analysis showed that ~ 1.4 nm Pt nanoparticles were highly dispersed on MWCNTs. The heterogeneous hydrogen-transfer reactions of acetophenone indicated that an acetophenone conversion of 100% and a 1-phenylethanol selectivity of 99.0% could be obtained with a ketone to Pt mass ratio of 24,690 and a ketone to KOH mass ratio of 22 at 150 °C for 5 h. The selectivity of the Pt/MWCNT catalyst was higher than that of the commercial Pt/C catalyst, due to the highly-dispersed, uniform Pt nanoparticles and the unique porous structures of the Pt/MWCNT catalyst. The high stability of the Pt/MWCNT catalyst was demonstrated by reutilization of the catalyst. The high reactivity and selectivity of this catalyst for hydrogen transfer reduction were also demonstrated for other ketones.