Controlled synthesis of highly dispersed semi-embedded ruthenium nanoparticles in porous carbon framework with more exposed active sites

Ordered mesoporous ruthenium containing carbon (Ru-OMC) catalyst with semi-embedded uniform Ru particle distribution was synthesized by using RuCl3/SBA-15 as a hard template. The sucrose both acts as the carbon precursor and Ru3+ stabilizer. The use of RuCl3/SBA-15 makes more exposed Ru surface available for reactants. The turnover frequency of the Ru-OMC catalyst for hydrogenation of benzene reaches ca. 35,000 h− 1 at 4 MPa, 110 °C, which is 12 times improvement compared with that of Ru/OMC catalyst prepared by impregnation. The Ru-OMC catalyst can be recycled more than 9 times without much loss of performance and aggregation of Ru nanoparticles.

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► Incorporated mesoporous carbon with uniform 2–3 nm sized Ru nanoparticles.
► Semi-embedded Ru nanoparticles with more exposed Ru active sites.
► A direct sucrose stabilized hard template method.
► High active and stable catalysts for benzene hydrogenation.