Exploring the Interfacial Hydrogen Transfer between Pt and the Siliceous Framework and Its Promotional Effect on the Isotope Catalytic Exchange.

Interfacial hydrogen transfer between metal particles and catalyst supports is a ubiquitous phenomenon in heterogeneous catalysis, and this occurrence on reducible supports has been established, yet controversies remain about how hydrogen transfer can take place on nonreducible supports, such as silica. Herein, highly dispersed Pt clusters supported on a series of porous silica materials with zeolitic or/and amorphous frameworks were prepared to interrogate the nature of hydrogen transfer and its promotional effect on H-HDO isotope catalytic exchange. The formation of zeolitic frameworks upon these porous silica supports by hydrothermal crystallization greatly promotes the interfacial hydrogen bidirectional migration between metal clusters and supports. Benefiting from this transfer effect, the isotope exchange rate is enhanced by 10 times compared to that on the amorphous counterpart (e.g., Pt/SBA-15). In situ spectroscopic and theoretical studies suggest that the defective silanols formed within the zeolite framework serve as the reactive sites to bind HDO or HO by hydrogen bonds. Under the electrostatic attraction interaction, the D of hydrogen-bonded HDO scrambles to the Pt site and the dissociated H on Pt simultaneously spills back to the electronegative oxygen atom of adsorbed water to attain H-D isotope exchange with an energy barrier of 0.43 eV. The reverse spillover D on Pt combines with the other H on Pt to form HD in the effluent. We anticipate that these findings are able to improve our understanding of hydrogen transfer between metal and silica supports and favor the catalyst design for the hydrogen-involving reaction.