Chemoselective hydrogenation of citral by Pt and Pt-Sn catalysts supported on TiO2 nanoparticles and nanowires

• Novel titanium dioxide nanowire support was used as a support material in chemoselective liquid phase hydrogenation of citral.
• Nanowire supported platinum catalyst had high activity and selectivity whereas nanoparticle supported had lower activity and poor selectivity.
• Addition of tin to the monometallic Pt/TiO2 NW changed the selectivity from citronellal to unsaturated alcohols.

Chemoselective hydrogenation of citral is studied over platinum catalyst supported on titanium dioxide nanoparticles and nanowires. The support is found to have considerable effect on both selectivity and activity. Because of the presence of weak basic sites on the nanowire support, the platinum catalyst shows significantly higher activity and better selectivity towards citronellal than that obtained by the catalyst based on TiO2 nanoparticles having mainly medium strong basic sites. Furthermore, addition of tin promoter to the platinum catalyst decreases the initial rate of reaction and increases the selectivity towards unsaturated alcohols such as nerol and geraniol. The catalytic activity studies are complemented by chemical composition, surface adsorption and structural analyses of the applied catalyst materials assessed by the means of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, temperature programmed reduction, H2 and CO2 desorption, CO chemisorption, electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction, respectively.

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