The effect of the interaction between Cu single atoms and Pt nanoparticles on the selective hydrogenation of epichlorohydrin to chloro-propanol

The catalytic epichlorohydrin (ECH) hydrogenation to chloro-propanol is of great industrial importance due to the extensive application of chloro-propanol as an intermediate for pharmaceutics, fine chemicals, and polymers. The challenge of this catalytic reaction lies in that dechlorination can hardly be inhibited in the selective hydrogenation of the epoxy group because the bond energy of the C-Cl bond is very close to that of the C O bond. Herein, we demonstrated that the selectivity of chloro-propanol could be improved from 82.2 % to 94.6 % by incorporating a small amount of Cu single atoms into Pt/C catalysts to inhibit dechlorination. More interestingly, the ring-opening site of the epoxy group can be also engineered by the incorporation of Cu single atoms, as evidenced by the significant increase in the selectivity of 3-chloro-1-propanol from 0.2 % to 14.5 %. Comprehensive characterizations and density functional theory (DFT) calculations were carried out to understand the interplay of Cu single atoms and Pt nanoparticles as well as its effect on the catalytic performance. The insights gained in this study will benefit the development of catalysts, especially the bimetallic catalysts for the selective hydrogenation of halogeno-aliphatic compounds.