Selective Hydrogenation of Crotonaldehyde on SiO2‐Supported Pt Clusters: A DFT Study

Abstract

AbstractThe selective hydrogenation of crotonaldehyde has gained considerable attention owing to its industrial applications for producing fine chemicals. Understanding the hydrogenation mechanism from density functional theory (DFT) calculations can provide insights for designing catalysts with high selectivities toward the target products. Among contemporary theoretical investigations of the hydrogenation, the calculated selectivities are not in agreement with the experimental results. Herein, a SiO2‐supported Pt nanocluster is developed, and it is used to investigate the selective hydrogenation of crotonaldehyde. The nanocluster model is used to obtain free energy barriers from DFT calculations, and these are used to build a microkinetic model. The theoretical selectivity values for the products are in agreement with the experimental results. According to the density of state analysis, this is directly attributed to the more accurate d‐band width from the Pt cluster. The contribution of each step to the final product is identified and can be used to intensify the process of generating the target product.