(177b) Synthesis of Metal Nanoparticles Encapsulated within Zeolites for Substrate Selective Heterogeneous Catalysis

Metal nanoparticles (NPs) have attracted much attention owing to their advantageous capabilities as heterogeneous catalysts. However, making the NPs stable on a solid support still remains a challenge because of the NP sintering and leaching issues. A proven strategy for overcoming these hurdles is to encapsulate metal NPs into zeolites. Herein, we report a novel synthesis method to generate metal NPs located inside MFI zeolites (denoted as M@MFI, M = Pt, Au and Pd). The resultant M@MFI catalysts were employed for substrate-selective reactions and showed 10 times higher substrate-selectivity than metal NPs located on the zeolites (M/MFI) when bulkier substrates were reacted. This result could be explained by the NPs encapsulated in MFI zeolite frameworks.