Olefin Hydrogenation with Single-Site Gold

J. Szlachetkoa, b, C. Lothschützc and J. Sád aPaul Scherrer Institute (PSI), 5232 Villigen-PSI, Switzerland bInstitute of Physics, Jan Kochanowski University, 25-406 Kielce, Poland cSyngenta Crop Protection, Münchwilen AG, Breitenloh-5, CH-4333 Muenchwilen, Switzerland dLaboratoire de Spectroscopie Ultrarapide, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

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Butene hydrogenation activity is intimately connected with the occupied and unoccupied electronic states of gold active site. We prepare well-defined Au(III) sites in IRMOF-3 structure, and tuned the metal density-of-states by replacing the substituent group of the coordinating group at position 5. Resonant inelastic X-ray scattering experiments and theoretical calculations revealed an increase in unoccupied 5d states of Au when the substituent group is a donating group, which leads to a dramatic increase in catalytic activity.

DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.125.940 PACS numbers: 82.80.Dx, 82.20.-w, 82.80.Ej