The effects of oxide supports on the low temperature hydrogenation activity of acetone over Pt/Ni bimetallic catalysts on SiO2, γ-Al2O3 and TiO2 Original Research Article

Low temperature (308 K) hydrogenation of acetone was used as a probe reaction to investigate the support effect on the hydrogenation activity of Pt/Ni bimetallic catalysts supported on TiO2, SiO2 and γ-Al2O3. The oxide supports significantly affected the catalytic properties of Pt/Ni catalysts, in which Pt/Ni/SiO2 bimetallic catalysts exhibited significantly higher activity than the other two bimetallic catalysts. TEM measurements revealed that the three supported Pt/Ni bimetallic catalysts have similar particle size distribution, while CO chemisorption measurements showed very different chemisorption capacity. Extended X-Ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements of the Pt LIII-edge indicated that Pt atoms were fully reduced and the Pt–Ni bimetallic bonds were formed on all three catalysts. The extent of Pt–Ni bond formation followed the trend of SiO2 > γ-Al2O3 > TiO2, which correlated very well with the hydrogenation activity.