Structural mimicking of inorganic catalyst supports with polydivinylbenzene to improve performance in the selective aerobic oxidation of ethanol and glycerol in water

• Preparation of polymer-supported platinum catalysts.
• Bifunctional catalysts are made by sulfonation of the polymer-supported catalysts.
• The polymer is made to contain pore structures similar to carbon and alumina supports.
• The catalysts are comparable due to similar morphology and pore structure.
• The polymer catalysts give higher product yields in the selective oxidation of alcohols.

Many forms of polymers have been prepared and studied as polymeric catalyst support for metal nanoparticles and solid acid catalysts. The nanocasted mesoporous polydivinylbenzene (PDVB)-supported platinum catalysts presented here are distinguished by their customized mesoporosity and bulk morphology that are comparable to typical carbon- and alumina-supported powdered catalysts. Platinum nanoparticles are deposited on PDVB at loadings between 1 wt% and 9 wt% and a mean size between 2.7 nm and 6.2 nm, dependent on the synthesis method. Bifunctional catalysts containing platinum and acidic functionality are prepared by gas-phase sulfonation of the Pt/PDVB catalysts. The PDVB-supported catalysts are active for the oxidation of ethanol with molecular oxygen in water with up to 94% yield of acetic acid. In the analogous oxidation of glycerol, up to 60% yield of glyceric acid is reached with the bifunctional catalyst, and the polymer-supported catalysts feature lower formation of unidentified side products than Pt/C and Pt/Al2O3. Altogether, we find the polymers to be more active than the alumina and more selective than the carbon supports and thus overall have optimized performance.

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