Enhanced performance of well-dispersed Co species incorporated on porous carbon derived from metal-organic frameworks in 1,3-butadiene hydrogenation

Transition metal nanoparticles (TM NPs) have attracted much significant attention due to their low cost, excellent physicochemical properties and promising applications in a variety of fields. However, there are still great challenges when exploring a cost-effective and straightforward strategy to prepare TM NPs with optimal supports for maximizing their catalytic efficiency. Herein, we develop a facile route to prepare well-dispersed Co species incorporated onto porous carbon derived from metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). The composites are characterized carefully to understand their phase, particle size, porosity, and graphitization degree. As a result, with the increasing of carbonization temperatures, the particle size increased, and metallic cobalt formed apparently. When being used as catalysts in the hydrogenation of 1,3-butadiene, the catalysts exhibit high catalytic performance. Particularly, Co-BTC-500 displays the highest catalytic ability with turnover frequency (TOF) of 0.059 S-1 owing to the small particle size and the active sites of metallic Co. In addition, the conversion of 1,3-butadiene has no obvious change after reacting for 30 h at 60 degrees C. The highest selectivity of monobutenes (95%) and 1-butene (69%) is obtained over Co-BTC-700, which is comparable with Pd catalysts.