Alkane metathesis is a potentially useful, industrially important catalytic cycle in which an alkane dehydrogenation catalyst and an olefin metathesis catalyst work, in tandem, to disproportionate saturated hydrocarbons. An alkane dehydrogenation catalyst of interest for this process is a Pt-based heterogeneous organometallic precursor for nanoparticle synthesis. Current catalysts in the tandem system suffer from low turnovers, as well as catalyst deactivation. The use of Pt(C5H9)2 supported on silica as a precursor for controlled formation of subnanometer particles is investigated.

NMR, IR, DFT, and XAS spectroscopies, as well as elemental analysis were used to probe the structure of Pt(C5H9)2 after it is grafted to silica surface. The organoplatinum precursor has shown to undergo protonolysis on both pentenyl ligands forming a (≡SiO) 2Pt(C5H10)2 surface site. XAS and TEM have also shown that small particles are formed after reduction in H 2 gas.