Spatially isolated dual-active sites enabling selective hydrogenation

Rational design of heterogeneous catalysts with dual-active sites provides a strategy to achieve efficient and selective hydrogenation under mild conditions by breaking the restriction of Brønsted-Evans-Polanyi scaling relations. Steric hindrance effects by encapsulating active components inside porous shells have been widely adopted to design catalysts with dual-active sites for selective hydrogenation. However, this methodology is always at the cost of the limited catalytic activity due to the restricted mass transfer through porous shell and inevitable sacrifice of part of the active sites inside shells. This perspective illustrates dual-active sites on the surface of supported metal catalysts, enabling simultaneously improved activity and selectivity for various hydrogenations. The key discussions include experimental evidence, construction guidelines, successful cases, and potential influencing factors of selective hydrogenation for constructing dual-active sites on the metal-supported catalysts. This perspective offers valuable insights into future prospects to stimulate and guide the design of advanced catalysts for selective hydrogenation.