Effect of thermal pretreatment on the surface structure of PtSn/SiO₂ catalyst and its performance in acetic acid hydrogenation

Abstract

The effect of thermal pretreatment on the active sites and catalytic performances of PtSn/SiO₂ catalyst in acetic acid (AcOH) hydrogenation was investigated in this article. The catalysts were characterized by N₂ physical adsorption, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, pyridine Fourier-transform infrared spectra, and H₂-O₂ titration on its physicochemical properties. The results showed that Pt species were formed primarily in crystalline structure and no PtSn_x alloy was observed. Meanwhile, with the increment of thermal pretreatment temperature, Pt dispersion showed a decreasing trend due to the aggregation of Pt particles. Simultaneously, the amount of Lewis acid sites was remarkably influenced by such thermal pretreatment owning to the consequent physicochemical property variation of Sn species. Interestingly, the catalytic activity showed the similar variation trend with that of Lewis acid sites, confirming the important roles of Lewis acid sites in AcOH hydrogenation. Moreover, a balancing effect between exposed Pt and Lewis acid sites was obtained, resulting in the superior catalytic performance in AcOH hydrogenation.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

thermal pretreatment / acetic acid / hydrogenation / ethanol / PtSn/SiO₂

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 21276186, 21325626, 91434127, U1510203) and the Tianjin Natural Science Foundation (13JCZDJC33000).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11705-016-1583-1 and is accessible for authorized users.

Funding

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2016 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg