(560gt) Synthesis of Zeolite-Encapsulated Metal Nanoparticles Via a Cationic Polymer-Assisted Strategy for Substrate-Selective Catalysis

Metal nanoparticles (NPs) on a solid support have been widely used as heterogeneous catalysts. However, supported metal NPs frequently suffer from the sintering and leaching of NPs. A proven strategy for addressing these challenges is to encapsulate metal NPs into zeolites. We developed a novel cationic polymer-assisted synthesis method for embedding metal NPs within MFI zeolites (denoted as M@MFI, M = Pt, Au and Pd). This method could be extended to other zeolite frameworks such as BEA and CHA. The resultant M@MFI, M@BEA and M@CHA catalysts were investigated for substrate size-selective reactions, and showed 10 times higher substrate size-selectivity than the corresponding zeolite-supported metal NPs, i.e., M/MFI, M/BEA and M/CHA. These results were attributable to the encapsulation feature of the NPs inside zeolite frameworks.