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Free keywords:
gold; graphene oxide; phenylacetylene hydrogenation; activity; selectivity; low temperatures; low coordination sites
Abstract:
A constraint to industrial implementation of gold-catalyzed alkyne hydrogenation is that the catalytic activity was always inferior to those of other noble metals. In this work, gold was supported on graphene oxide (Au/GO) and used in a hydrogenation application. A 99% selectivity toward styrene with a 99% conversion in the hydrogenation of phenylacetylene was obtained at 60 °C, which is 100 to 200 °C lower than optimal temperatures in most previous reports on Au catalysts. A series of gold- and palladium-based reference catalysts were tested under the same conditions for phenylacetylene hydrogenation, and the performance of Au/GO was substantiated by studying the role of functionalized GO in governing the geometrical structure and thermal stability of supported Au nanoparticles under reaction conditions.
