Tunability of catalytic properties of Pd-based catalysts by rational control of strong metal and support interaction (SMSI) for selective hydrogenolyic C-C and C-O bond cleavage of ethylene glycol units in biomass molecules

It is shown that the catalytic properties of Pd can be fine-tuned by rationally varying the metal-support interaction through the formation of bimetallic nanoparticles with a support after hydrogen reduction; in the hydrogenolysis of a -CHOHCHOH- vicinal diol unit, the ability to break the C-C bond over the C-O bond is found to increase significantly with the decrease in d-band filling, while the ability to break the C-O bond is enhanced by the upshift of the d-band center of modified Pd.