Palladium-encapsulated hollow porous carbon nanospheres as nanoreactors for highly efficient and size-selective catalysis

Herein, we report a fabrication of well-naked palladium nanoparticles encapsulated within hollow porous carbon nanospheres (Pd@HPCNs) by carbonization of palladium-encapsulated hyper-crosslinking hollow porous polymeric nanospheres (Pd@HPPNs) with a silica-protection strategy. Owing to the classical yolk-shell structure, high surface area and permeable microporous carbon shell, the resultant Pd@HPCNs exhibited a highly size-selective catalysis performance toward oxidation of various alcohols via the molecular sieving. This method can be further developed into a general strategy to immobilize various metal or metal oxide into HPCNs nanoreactors as promising catalyst candidates for future practical applications.