Surfactant-Free Palladium Nanoparticles Encapsulated in ZIF-8 Hollow Nanospheres for Size-Selective Catalysis in Liquid-Phase Solution

Abstract

© 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Encapsulation of surfactant-free Pd nanoparticles (NPs) in the metal–organic framework material ZIF-8 hollow nanospheres was achieved. Pd@ZIF-8 hollow nanospheres showed excellent size-selective catalytic properties in the liquid-phase hydrogenation of olefins. As a result of the uniform pore size of the ZIF-8 shell (apertures of 3.4 Å), the catalyst showed high activity for the hydrogenation of 1-hexene (1.9×8.2 Å) but very low activity for larger molecules such as cis-cyclooctene (5.3×5.5 Å), trans-stilbene (4.2×11.3 Å), and triphenylethylene (9.1×9.2 Å). Other surfactant-free noble-metal nanoparticles could also be employed to produce NPs@MOFs for catalysis.