ABSTRACT The construction of multifunctional catalytically active sites and application of their synergistic effects in heterogeneous catalysis are pivotal for achieving cinnamaldehyde (CAL) highly efficiently and selectively converting to high‐value chemicals. This study reports the Pt/CoZrO x catalysts with highly dispersed platinum, where Pt facilitates hydrogen adsorption, activation, and dissociation; the Co‐related sites promote preferential adsorption of CAL. This rational design significantly enhances selective hydrogenation of CAL, obtaining 64.0% CAL conversion and 82.8% selectivity to cinnamyl alcohol (COL) with a hydrogenation reaction rate of 174.8 mol CAL mol Pt −1 h −1 under mild reaction conditions (60°C). Pt/CoZrO x also exhibits remarkable stability, maintaining its catalytic activity and selectivity over five consecutive cycles without significant degradation. In addition, this work indicates that the reason for selectivity enhancement may be the synergistic effect of multiple active sites, providing fundamental insights for the rational design of highly efficient and selective catalysts for CAL selective hydrogenation.
Li et al. (Sun,) studied this question.