ORIGINAL PAPER Nano Design of Alumina Supported Monometallic Catalysts: A Promising Way to Improve the Selective Hydrogenation of Poly-Unsaturated Hydrocarbons Ce´cile Thomazeau • Tivadar Cseri • Laure Bisson • Julie Aguilhon • Doan Pham Minh • Ce´dric Boissie`re • Olivier Durupthy • Cle´ment Sanchez Published online: 2 August 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 Abstract In the field of catalysis by metals, a new insight for the nanodesign of supported heterogeneous catalysts is the tailoring of metallic nanoparticles. In this work, well- faceted monometallic nanoparticles (Pd, Pt, Ni) exposing mostly the {111} crystallographic facet are obtained in aqueous solution and are deposited on an alumina support. The involved mechanisms of nanoparticles formation are determined and are evidenced to be different as a function of the nature of the metal. In the case of palladium the mechanism consists in an oriented attachment of palladium nanoparticles leading to the energetically most favourable stacking of nanoparticles, at the origin of the early differ- entiation of the nanoparticles shapes and of the formation of the well-faceted palladium nanoparticles. In the case of platinum, the mechanism seems to be a combination of aggregation of already reduced nuclei and direct reduction depending on the experimental conditions. In the case of the less reductible metal, nickel, well-faceted nanoparticles are not obtained during the synthesis and only a thermal activation under hydrogen can engender their formation. The impact of the {111} crystallographic facet for platinum and nickel is very important and induces a drastic increase of selectivity towards olefins formation with a selectivity close to the one of a palladium catalyst which is the most selective metal for the selective hydrogenation of poly- unsaturated hydrocarbons. Keywords Metallic nanoparticles  Synthesis  Aqueous solution  Morphology  Catalysis  Selective hydrogenation  Selectivity 1 Introduction In the field of hydrogenation reactions, selective hydroge- nations are essential and widely used in refining (petroleum cuts purification) and petrochemistry (production of inter- mediates for chemical or polymers applications). The main aim of these reactions is to convert the most unsaturated hydrocarbons (alkynes, dienes), especially at high conver- sion level, into the corresponding olefins (the high added value desired product, with drastic specifications required), thus avoiding a complete hydrogenation and formation of the saturated hydrocarbons. The most active and selective metals used for selective hydrogenations are palladium, platinum and nickel. Industrial catalysts are usually sup- ported on alumina with 0.1–0.5 wt% of metal for noble metals, and with 5–18 wt % of metal in the case of nickel [1]. C. Thomazeau (&)  T. Cseri  L. Bisson  J. Aguilhon  D. Pham Minh IFP Energies nouvelles, Rond-point de l’e´changeur de Solaize, BP 3, 69360 Solaize, France e-mail: cecile.thomazeau@ifpen.fr L. Bisson  J. Aguilhon  C. Boissie`re  O. Durupthy  C. Sanchez Chimie de la Matie`re Condense´e de Paris, Colle`ge de France, UPMC, Universite´ Paris VI, UMR 7574, 11 Place Marcelin Berthelot, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France L. Bisson  J. Aguilhon  C. Boissie`re  O. Durupthy  C. Sanchez Chimie de la Matie`re Condense´e de Paris, Colle`ge de France, CNRS, UMR 7574, 11 Place Marcelin Berthelot, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France L. Bisson  J. Aguilhon  C. Boissie`re  O. Durupthy  C. Sanchez Colle`ge de France, Chaire des Mate´riaux Hybrides, 11 place Marcelin Berthelot, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France 123 Top Catal (2012) 55:690–699 DOI 10.1007/s11244-012-9868-1