Pt/Ce–La Nanocomposite for Hydrogenation Promoted by a Synergistic Effect of Support with Redox and Basic Property

The catalytic behavior of hydrogenations is often intimately associated with the supports of Pt-based catalysts. And the issue of support effects is not well resolved yet. We systematically study the support effect using three representative supports, reducible CeO 2 , basic La 2 O 2 CO 3 and Ce–La composite with redox and basic properties. The Pt/Ce–La catalyst are well characterized by a serial of methods, such as X-ray powder diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, N 2 -sorption, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, temperature-programmed reduction of H 2 (H 2 -TPR), temperature programmed desorption of CO 2 (CO 2 -TPD) and Raman. Ce–La composite exhibits best catalytic activity in the selective hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde (CAL). The excellent catalytic performance of Pt/Ce–La composite is mainly ascribed to the optimal electronic Pt-support interactions on the redox sites and appropriate CAL adsorption ability at the basic sites. In all, the recombination of basic sites and redox ability are the critical requirements for the design of efficient catalysts. Graphical Abstract We prepared a CeO 2 –La 2 O 2 CO 3 nanocomposite with redox and basic property for anchoring Pt nanoparticles. The Pt/Ce–La catalyst exhibited enhanced catalytic activity in the selective hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde (CAL) to cinnamyl alcohol (CMO) with a good TOF of 2701 h −1 , which was much higher than the counterparts of Pt/CeO 2 and Pt/La 2 O 2 CO 3 . The synergistic effect between basic La 2 O 2 CO 3 and redox CeO 2 leads to the obviously improved catalytic activity.