Nitrogen- and oxygen-functionalized carbon nanotubes supported Pt-based catalyst for the selective hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde

•Nitrogen- and oxygen-functionalized CNTs were obtained with the hydrothermal method.•The influence of nitrogen and oxygen species on Pt-based catalysts was investigated.•The catalyst was used in cinnamaldehyde hydrogenation reaction.•The functionalization could greatly improve the catalytic performance.•PtCo/N-CNTs was highly active and selective to cinnamyl alcohol at low temperature.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) supported Pt catalysts were employed to study the influence of nitrogen- and oxygen-functionalized surface on catalytic performance in the liquid-phase hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde. Nitrogen- and oxygen-functionalized CNTs were simply treated with the hydrothermal method using ammonia and hydrogen peroxide, respectively, and the metal catalyst was prepared using an impregnation-reduction-deposition method. Here, we studied and gave some insights into the influence of the functionalization on CNTs surface chemistry environment and Pt nanoparticles using XRD, Raman spectroscopy, TEM, XPS, and nitrogen sorption techniques. It was shown that the functionalization lead to the small size distribution of Pt particles and promoted the conversion from ca. 75% to ca. 95%. To obtain the high selectivity, transition metals, cobalt and nickel, were doped into the Pt catalyst and the 99.7% conversion with the 87.9% selectivity was achieved over the nitrogen-functionalized CNTs supported PtCo catalysts. The PtCo/N-CNTs remained high activity even at 40 °C and achieved 94.2% conversion and 90.3% selectivity.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload high-quality image (476 K)Download as PowerPoint slide