In situ encapsulated ultrafine Pd nanoparticles in nitrogen-doped porous carbon derived from hyper-crosslinked polymers effectively catalyse hydrogenation

Porous carbon-supported metal nanoparticles (NPs) with ultrafine size are of great importance in chemical industry, however, avoiding aggregation and retaining surface activity of these metal NPs is still challenging. In this work, the uniformly dispersed Pd NPs with the size of ca. 1.3 nm are successfully anchored in nitrogen-doped porous carbon (NPC) support via an in situ pyrolysis reduction strategy using nitrogen-doped hyper-crosslinked polymers and palladium acetate (Pd(OAc)₂) as precursors. Especially, upon H₂O₂ post-treatment, the obtained Pd/NPC-H₂O₂ (1.3 nm) composites show the excellent catalytic performance for the selective hydrogenation of furfural and quinoline. This newly developed strategy will open an avenue for the large-scale fabrication of active ultrafine metal loaded nanocomposites for various advanced applications.