Recently, a research team led by Professor Chen Ping and Professor Guo Jianping from our group, in collaboration with a team of Associate Professor Wu Anan from Xiamen University, has made new progress in the research of catalytic selective hydrogenation of alkynes. The collaborative team applied coordination hydride materials to the catalytic selective hydrogenation of alkynes and developed a new type of alkaline earth metal palladium-based ternary hydride catalyst, achieving highly selective catalytic hydrogenation of alkynes to olefins.

The selective hydrogenation of alkynes to olefins plays an important role in the fields of petrochemicals, synthetic drugs, fine chemicals, etc. The development of efficient catalysts is the key to realizing this process. In this work, the collaborative team proposed a different catalyst design strategy, using coordinated metal hydrides (CaPdH₂) for the selective hydrogenation of alkynes. The catalyst regulates the adsorption and hydrogenation energy barriers of alkynes, olefins and reaction intermediates through the synergistic effect of [PdH₂]^δ- and Ca^δ+, thereby achieving highly selective hydrogenation of alkynes to olefins. As a unique class of catalysts, this type of ternary hydride catalyst is significantly different from conventional heterogeneous alkyne selective hydrogenation catalysts in terms of active center composition, structure, reaction kinetic properties, and catalytic mechanism. This work enriches the alkyne selective hydrogenation catalyst system, and based on the diversity of the composition and structure of metal coordinated hydride materials, it provides more possibilities for finding more efficient alkyne selective hydrogenation catalysts.

Professor Chen Ping's team recently used ruthenium-based coordination hydrides for catalytic ammonia synthesis (Nat. Catal., 2021). This work further applied coordination hydride materials to alkyne hydrogenation reactions, demonstrating the development potential of such materials in heterogeneous catalytic reactions.

The results of this study were recently published in the Journal of theAmerican Chemical Society under the title "Enabling Semihydrogenation of Alkynes to Alkenes by Using a Calcium Palladium Complex Hydride". The first authors of this work are doctoral student Guo Qing from my group and Chen Ruting from Xiamen University. The work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation, the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Liaoning Province "Xingliao Talent Plan" and other projects. (Text/Photo by Guo Qing and Guo Jianping)

Article link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.1c09489