Mesoporous organo-inorganic hybrid materials as hydrogenation catalysts

The paper concerns application of two types of organic materials – porous aromatic frameworks (PAFs) with diamond-like structure and the ordered mesoporous phenol-formaldehyde polymers (MPFs) – as supports for metal and metal sulfide nanoparticles. The obtained hybrid materials were tested in hydrogenation of various unsaturated and aromatic compounds. Ruthenium catalyst, based on PAF (Ru-PAF-30), possessed high activity in exhaustive hydrogenation of phenol into cyclohexanol with TOF value of 2700 h−1. Platinum catalyst, based on modified with sulfo-groups MPF (MPF-SO3H-Pt), was selective in semi-hydrogenation of terpenes, [α-terpinene, γ-terpinene, terpinolene, (s)-limonene]. Bimetallic Ni–W sulfide catalysts, prepared by in situ decomposition of [(n-Bu)4N]2Ni(WS4)2 within the pores of MPFs and PAFs, possessed high efficiency in hydrogenation-hydrocracking of naphthalenes as model substrates.