Active sites discrimination of Pt-catalyzed hydrogenation of 2-methylfuran

The uniformity of nanoparticles on supported catalysts is crucial for the understanding of their active sites. Compared to traditional synthesis methods, continuous flow method can effectively control the size of nanoparticles. Herein, we successfully synthesized a series of Pt/C catalysts with uniform Pt nanoparticles by continuous flow method and discriminated the active sites for 2-methylfuran (2-MF) hydrogenation. The activation energy and XPS characterization results indicate that the 2-MF hydrogenation is mainly governed by Pt geometric properties for Pt nanoparticles ≥ 3.05 nm. Based on the truncated cuboctahedron model, the dominant active sites for 2-MF hydrogenation are further discriminated as follows: the (111) facet for 2-MF conversion, the (100) facet for 2-pentanone (2-PN) formation, the edge site for 2-methyltetrahydrofuran (2-MTHF) formation and the corner site for 2-pentanol (2-POL) formation. For Pt nanoparticles < 3.05 nm, the reaction is mainly influenced by the electronic properties of Pt.