Synthesis of PVP-stabilized Pt/Ru colloidal nanoparticles by ethanol reduction and their catalytic properties for selective hydrogenation of ortho-chloronitrobenzene

Stable poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone)-stabilized Pt/Ru colloidal nanoparticles (PVP-Pt/Ru) were prepared via ethanol reduction of H2PtCl6⋅6H2O and RuCl3⋅nH2O. The average diameters of the nanoparticles with different molar ratio of Pt/Ru were in a range of 2.1–2.8 nm with narrow size distributions. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy verified that both Pt and Ru were in the metallic state and Ru was rich on the surface. These nanoparticles were employed to selectively hydrogenate ortho-chloronitrobenzene at 298 K and 0.1 MPa hydrogen pressure. They showed high activity [TOF was in the range of 0.8–5.3 × 10−2 molo-CNB/(molM,surface atom) s] and high selectivity (93–99%) to ortho-chloroaniline (o-CAN) for the reaction, which were composition-dependent. The selectivity to o-CAN monotonously increased, but the activity of the catalyst decreased with the increasing proportion of Ru in Pt/Ru colloidal catalysts. PVP-1Pt/4Ru nanoparticles exhibited the highest selectivity of 99.0% to o-CAN at a complete conversion.