Wrinkled mesoporous carbon supported Pd nanoparticles for hydrogenation and aerobic oxidation reactions

Wrinkled mesoporous silica (WMS) was employed as a hard template to synthesize a carbon replica. The resulting carbon materials, wrinkled mesoporous carbon (WMC), retained the main structural features from the WMS, which has conical pores that radiate from the center of the spherical particle to the outer surface in all directions resulting in wrinkled shaped pore walls. This WMC material was used as a catalyst support for Pd nanoparticles. The Pd on WMC catalyst showed superior performance over commercial Pd on activated carbon for both styrene hydrogenation and the aerobic oxidation of benzyl alcohol.