Bidentate ligand modification strategy on supported Ni nanoparticles for photocatalytic selective hydrogenation of alkynes

Abstract

The design of selective and stable non-precious metal catalysts for hydrogenation of alkyne is highly desirable. In this study, L-lysine modification strategy is applied to support Ni nanoparticles, which greatly improves the stability and photocatalytic performance in the hydrogenation of phenylacetylene to styrene. The robust stability is attributed to that both amino and carboxyl groups of L-lysine can function simultaneously as the anchor, much stronger than a single group, to strongly interact with metallic Ni via N and O coordination. The high selectivity to styrene is due to that L-lysine modification results in a larger adsorption energy difference between styrene and phenylacetylene on the surface of Ni, therefore phenylacetylene is preferentially adsorbed on Ni surface. This protocol shows that the modulation of interaction between ligands and Ni is favorable to design stable, active and selective catalysts for hydrogenation of alkynes.