Rh nanoparticles with NiOx surface decoration for selective hydrogenolysis of C[sbnd]O bond over arene hydrogenation

Abstract

Surface decoration strategy is applied to design NP catalyst for the selective hydrogenolysis of C[sbnd]O bond without hydrogenating benzene ring, which is critical in lignin conversion under hydrogen treatment. The synthesized NiOx/Rh NPs are featured with Rh core whose surface is partially blocked by NiOx, which segregated the surface terrace zones into smaller segments, preventing the coordination and hydrogenation of benzene rings. Moreover, the NiOx shows no electronic modification to the Rh core, thereby the blockage effect of NiOx only inhibits the hydrogenation of benzene ring but not affect the hydrogenolysis activity of Rh core.