DNA-base regulation of Pt nanocrystals: morphology and catalytic activity for hydrogenation

• 1、Chemical Engineering and Technology school, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072

Abstract：Catalytic hydrogenation is one of the important means for processing petroleum chemical products because of its atomic economy, good product quality, easy post-processing, and controllable selectivity. Pt nanoparticles (NPs) have been used as the catalyst for many hydrogenation reactions due to their good catalytic performance. Their catalytic activity and selectivity are strongly depended on their size and morphology. According to Gibbs-Wulff theory, the morphology and size of NPs can be effectively controlled by certain capping agent. In this paper, NaBH4 has been used to reduce platinum precursor (H2PtCl6) to prepare Pt NPs in water solution. The reduction of p-nitrophenol (p-NIP) by H2 was employed as model reaction to evaluate catalytic performance of as-prepared Pt NPs. Various biomolecules, including DNA basic groups (adenine, guanine, thymine, cytosine) and corresponding nucleosides, were chosen as capping agent to control the size and shape of Pt NPs. Experimental results show that capping agents of biological molecules have apparent effect on the regulation of Pt NPs. Pt NPs with multiple morphologies and sizes have been successfully prepared. Simultaneously, the as-prepared catalysts showed precisely controllable activity for the hydrogenation of p-NIP. The structure of biomolecule has a direct impact on the catalytic performance of the catalyst. The Pt NPs regulated by nucleoside exhibit much higher activity than that of corresponding DNA-base, which could be ascribed to the presence of extra ribose molecule in nucleosides.

Keywords： Chemical technology Pt nanoparticles catalytic hydrogenation DNA base