Parahydrogen-induced polarization (PHIP) is a nuclear spin hyperpolarization method that can enhance NMR sensitivity by 4-5 orders. Heterogeneous parahydrogen-induced polarization (HET-PHIP) generates polarization by incorporating heterogeneous hydrogenation systems and has an advantage in catalyst separation to produce a catalyst-free polarized mixture. However, HET-PHIP has low efficiency in catalyzing pairwise hydrogenation to obtain an intensive polarized signal. Metal-supported zeolites are important heterogeneous catalysts but their utilization in the HET-HPIP study is limited due to low polarization levels. This work investigates propene hydrogenation over different rhodium-containing Silicalite-1 zeolites using the HET-PHIP technique to explore the effect of catalyst structure on signal enhancement. Both liquid-state and in situ magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR experiments are performed to explore the PHIP effect on propene hydrogenation over different Rh-containing zeolites.
The supported Rh species and zeolite structure determine molecule polarization and signal enhancement. Intensive polarized signals are generated on self-pillared Silicalite-1 nanosheets supported Rh catalyst (Rh/SP-S-1, Figure 1a and 1d), which can be correlated to ultrasmall Rh nanoparticles and enhanced mass transport efficiency of the zeolite support. Silicalite-1 nanocrystals supporting large Rh nanoparticles on the external surface (Rh/Nano-S-1, Figure 1b and 1e) are less active for PHIP generation. Single-atom Rh encaged in Silicalite-1 nanocrystals (Rh@S-1, Figure 1c and 1f) demonstrates high activity for hydrogenation but low observed polarization generation efficiency. This provides evidence about the critical role of interactions between zeolite-confined polarized molecules and micropore structures in attenuating polarization.
Fig.1 Polarized 1H NMR spectra of propene hydrogenation over different catalysts in time on stream experiments (a-c), and the calculated signal enhancement factor (SEF), propene conversion and propane selectivity (d-f).