General Immobilization of Ultrafine Alloyed Nanoparticles within Metal-Organic Frameworks with High Loadings for Advanced Synergetic Catalysis

The development of a general synthesis approach for creating fine alloyed nanoparticles (NPs) in the pores of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) shows great promise for advanced synergetic catalysis but has not been realized so far. Herein, for the first time we proposed a facile and general strategy to immobilize ultrafine alloyed NPs within the pores of an MOF by the galvanic replacement of transition-metal NPs (e.g., Cu, Co, and Ni) with noble-metal ions (e.g., Pd, Ru, and Pt) under high-intensity ultrasound irradiation. Nine types of bimetallic alloyed NPs of base and noble metals were successfully prepared and immobilized in the pores of MIL-101 as a model host, which showed highly dispersed and well-alloyed properties with average particle sizes ranging from 1.1 to 2.2 nm and high loadings of up to 10.4 wt %. Benefiting from the ultrafine particle size and high dispersity of Cu-Pd NPs and especially the positive synergy between Cu and Pd metals, the optimized Cu-Pd@MIL-101 exhibited an extremely high activity for the homocoupling reaction of phenylacetylene under unprecedented base-and additive-free conditions and room temperature, affording at least 19 times higher yield (98%) of 1,4-diphenylbuta-1,3-diyne than its monometallic counterparts. This general strategy for preparing various MOF-immobilized alloyed NPs potentially paves the way for the development of highly active metal catalysts for a variety of reactions.