Preparation and characterization of a supported system of Ni2P/Ni12P5 nanoparticles and their use as the active phase in chemoselective hydrogenation of acetophenone

DOLLY C. COSTA; ANALÍA L. SOLDATI; GINA PECCHI; JOSÉ F. BENGOA; VIRGINIA VETERE

NANOTECHNOLOGY

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2018 vol. 29 p. 215702 - 215713

0957-4484

Ni2P/Ni12P5 nanoparticles were obtained by thermal decomposition of nickel organometallic salt at low temperature. The use of different characterization techniques allowed us to determine that this process produced a mixture of two nickel phosphide phases: Ni2P and Ni12P5. These nickel phosphides nanoparticles, supported on mesoporous silica, showed activity and high selectivity to produce the hydrogenation of the acetophenone carbonyl group to obtain 1-phenylethanol. This is a first report that demonstrates the ability of supported Ni2P/Ni12P5 nanoparticles to produce a chemoselective hydrogenation of the acetophenone. This is an attractive result because, we attributed these special catalytic properties to the particular geometry of the Ni-P sites on the surface of the nanoparticles. Taking into account that, the nickel phosphides has a broad composition range (from Ni3P to NiP3), with different crystallographic structures, it would be possible to speculate that different phases could be active and selective to hydrogenate many important molecules with more than one functional group.