Hydrogenation of o-cresol on platinum catalyst: Catalytic experiments and first-principles calculations

Highlights: • Hydrogenation of o-cresol over Pt results in formation of two products. • Dissociation of hydrogen from the −OH group involves a low activation energy. • Following hydrogenation of the aromatic ring forms 2-methyl-cyclohexanone. • Further hydrogenation produces the final product, 2-methyl-cyclohexanol. - Abstract: Catalytic experiments were performed for the hydrogenation of o-cresol in n-dodecane over a platinum catalyst. Batch reactions analyzed with an in-situ ATR IR probe suggest that the hydrogenation results in the formation of the final product, 2-methyl-cyclohexanol, with 2-methyl-cyclohexanone as the intermediate product. Ab initio density-functional theory was employed to investigate the atomic-scale mechanism of o-cresol hydrogenation on the Pt(111) surface. The formation of 2-methyl-cyclohexanone was found to involve two steps. The first step is a hydrogen abstraction, that is, the H atom in the hydroxyl group migrates to the Pt surface. The second step is hydrogenation, that is, the pre-existing H atoms on Pt react with the carbon atoms in the aromatic ring. On the other hand, 2-methyl-cyclohexanonol may be produced through two paths, with activation energies slightly greater than that for the formation of 2-methyl-cyclohexanone. One path involves direct hydrogenation of the aromatic ring. Another path involves three steps, with the partial hydrogenation of the ring as the first step, hydrogen abstraction of the −OH group as the second, and hydrogenation of remaining C atoms and the O atom the last.