Search

The SSZ-39 zeolite is regarded as a promising small-pore zeolite for industrial applications due to its excellent catalytic properties and this review briefly summarizes the recent advances in the synthesis and application of the SSZ-39 zeolite.

Rapid synthesis of Si-rich (SiO

Fluoride-free synthesis of beta zeolite with enrichment of polymorph B is successfully achieved by using raw materials of solid silica gel, organic templates, sodium hydroxide, and zeolite seeds in the absence of any solvents.

The incorporation of metal heteroatoms into zeolites is an effective modification strategy for enhancing their catalytic performance. Herein, for the first time we report a generalized methodology for inserting metal heteroatoms (such as Sn, Fe, Zn, and Co) into the layered zeolite precursor RUB-36 via interlayer expansion by using the corresponding metal acetylacetate salt. Through this generalized methodology, Sn-JHP-1, Fe-JHP-1, Zn-JHP-1 and Co-JHP-1 zeolites could be successfully prepared by the reaction of RUB-36 and corresponding metal acetylacetate salt at 180 °C for 24 h in the presence of HCl solution. As a typical example, Sn-JHP-1 and calcined Sn-JHP-1 (Sn-JHP-2) zeolite is well characterized by the X-ray diffraction (XRD), diffuse reflectance ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis), inductively coupled plasma (ICP), N2 sorption, temperature-programmed-desorption of ammonia (NH3-TPD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) techniques, which confirm the expansion of adjacent interlayers and thus the incorporation of isolated Sn sites within the zeolite structure. Notably, the obtained Sn-JHP-2 zeolite sample shows enhanced catalytic performance in the conversion of glucose to levulinic acid (LA) reaction.

Ultrathin nanosheets (6–8 nm) of aluminosilicate FER zeolites have been successfully synthesized using a sole small organic ammonium (N,N-diethyl-cis-2,6-dimethyl piperidinium, DMP). Catalytic tests on the skeletal isomerization of 1-butene to isobutene show that the FER nanosheets exhibit much higher conversion and selectivity than conventional FER zeolites.

The conversion of bioethanol into valuable products is an important area in the conversion of biomass. We demonstrate the successful synthesis of bimetallic gold-palladium (Au-Pd) nanoparticles encapsulated within S-1 zeolite crystals (AuPd@S-1) by a solvent-free strategy. This strategy allows highly efficient use of the noble metals, with more than 96 % of the gold and palladium being loaded into the final samples. Electron microscopy characterization and investigations with probe molecules confirm that the Au-Pd nanoparticles are encapsulated inside the S-1 crystals. The AuPd@S-1 catalyst is very active for the aerobic oxidation of bioethanol, giving 100 % conversion and 99 % selectivity to acetic acid. Even in the presence of 90 % water, the catalyst still gives a conversion higher than 80 % and a selectivity of 95 %. More importantly, the AuPd@S-1 catalyst exhibits excellent stability in the oxidation of bioethanol. These features are important for future practical applications of the AuPd@S-1 catalyst.

We report a solvent-free synthesis of all silica Beta zeolite using a cheap organic template of tetraethylammonium bromide (TEABr). The method includes mixing, grinding and heating solid raw material in the absence of water solvent but the presence of zeolite seeds. The absence of water solvent significantly improves the efficiency of synthesis, while the addition of seeds remarkably enhances the crystallization rate. In addition, the use of a cheap organic template of TEABr greatly decreases the synthesis cost. The effects of the reaction compositions, including the molar ratios of NH4F/SiO2, TEABr/SiO2, and mass ratios of seeds to the silica, on the synthesis of the pure product were investigated using different temperature. Physicochemical characterizations, including XRD, SEM, TG and N2 sorption, show that the zeolitic product has good crystallinity, uniform crystals, and high surface area.

The development of the sustainable synthesis of zeolites has become a very hot topic in recent years. Herein, we report a sustainable route for synthesizing all-silica SOD zeolite under solvent-free conditions. The method of solvent-free synthesis includes mixing, grinding, and heating raw solids. The all-silica SOD zeolite obtained was well characterized by multiple measurement techniques (XRD, SEM, IR, thermogravimetric-differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), and magic angel spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (MAS NMR)). The crystallization process of all-silica SOD zeolite was also investigated in detail by XRD, SEM, UV-Raman, and MAS NMR techniques. In addition, the effects of the crystallization compositions, including the molar ratios of Na2O/SiO2 and ethylene glycol/SiO2, on the synthesis of the pure all-silica SOD zeolite were investigated at different temperatures.

Structurally interlocked multi-armed carbon with a highly extended surface may be conveniently prepared by the deterministic growth of ZIF-8 on ZnO multiarms and the subsequent pyrolysis, which exhibits excellent stability and methanol corrosion resistance for oxygen reduction application.

Co-salen functionalized on graphene with an average pore size of 27.7 nm as a heterogeneous catalyst exhibited good catalytic activity and recyclability in cyclohexene oxidation.

Small-pore zeolite levyne has been successfully synthesized following an organotemplate-free route using RUB-50 zeolite as seeds with the aid of a small amount of alcohols. Physicochemical characterization with a combination of techniques including XRD, N 2 adsorption, FE-SEM, 27 Al and 29 Si NMR, and TPD-NH 3 shows that the zeolitic product from this seed-directed organotemplate-free synthesis approach (designated as LEV-SDS) has good crystallinity, high surface area, uniform crystals, tetrahedral Al 3+ species, and abundant acidic sites. It is also found that alcohols play an important role in preparation of LEV-SDS zeolite by inhibiting the formation of MOR zeolite. Catalytic tests for the conversion of methanol-to-olefins (MTO) show that H-form of LEV-SDS zeolite exhibits good conversion of methanol and high selectivities for ethylene and propylene, which could be potentially important for using LEV-SDS zeolite as a catalyst in MTO reaction.

Novel excellent hydrophobic- mesoporous- polymer-based solid acid catalysts have been successfully synthesized by copolymerization of divinylbenzene (DVB) with sodium p-styrene sulfonate (H-PDVB-x-SO3H's) under solvothermal conditions. N2 isotherms and TEM images showed that H-PDVB-x-SO3H's have high BET surface areas, large pore volumes, and abundant mesoporosity; CHNS element analysis and acid–base titration technology showed that H-PDVB-x-SO3H's have adjustable sulfur contents (0.31–2.36 mmol/g) and acidic concentrations (0.26–1.86 mmol/g); TG curves showed that H-PDVB-x-SO3H's exhibited much higher stability of the active site (372 °C) than that of the acidic resin of Amberlyst 15 (312 °C); contact angle and water adsorption tests showed that H-PDVB-x-SO3H's exhibited excellent hydrophobic properties. Catalytic tests in esterification of acetic acid with cyclohexanol, esterification of acetic acid with 1-butanol, and condensation of benzaldehyde with ethylene glycol showed that H-PDVB-x-SO3H's were mo...

Porous polymer supported palladium catalyst for cross coupling reactions with high activity has been successfully prepared by coordination of Pd2+ species with Schiff bases functionalized porous polymer. The catalyst has been systemically investigated by a series of characterizations such as TEM, N-2 adsorption, NMR, IR, XPS, etc. TEM and N-2 isotherms show that the sample maintains the nanoporous structure after the modification and coordination. XPS results show that chemical state of palladium species in the catalyst is mainly +2. More importantly, the catalyst shows very high activities and excellent recyclability in a series of coupling reactions including Suzuki, Sonogashira, and Heck reactions. Hot filtration and poison of catalysts experiments have also been performed and the results indicate that soluble active species (mainly Pd(0) species) in-situ generated from the catalyst under the reaction conditions are the active intermediates, which would redeposit to the supporter after the reactions.

The modern synthesis of zeolites typically uses organic structure-directing agents. Therefore, the developing of new templates is part of zeolite research. The design and synthesis of Cu-SSZ-13 using a novel template of a low-cost copper amine complex (Cu2+ coordinated with tetraethylenepentamine) were reported, where the copper amine complex is both a template for synthesizing the SSZ-13 structure and a source of copper species in the zeolite. The calculated size of the complex (0.728 nm x 0.922 nm) matches well with the CHA cages (0.73 nm x 1.2 nm), which are the building units of the SSZ-13 zeolite. Various techniques were used to investigate the chemical and physical properties of the synthesized zeolite. The results showed that the sample has the SSZ-13 zeolite structure, high crystallinity, adjustable Si/Al ratios, and controllable copper loading. Catalytic tests using the selective catalytic reduction of NOx with NH3 showed that the Cu-SSZ-13 was a superior catalyst, and it can be important for the abatement of environmentally harmful NOx.

Effect of Zr content on the structure and water&ndash, gas shift reaction catalytic activities of Au-CeO2-ZrO2 catalysts were quantitatively analyzed in detail. For the low ZrO2 content (0&ndash, 15 wt. %), the Ce-Zr-O solid solutions were formed through the substitutional incorporation of Zr cations into CeO2 lattice, resulting in the contraction of cell parameters a and d-spacing (i.e., lattice distortion) and the increase of microstrain and oxygen vacancies. Quantitatively, the enhanced WGS activities have good linear correlation with the cell parameters a, microstrain, Raman shift and oxygen vacancies. Whereas, for the rich-zirconia (45 wt. %) sample, Au-CeZr-45 has some isolated t-ZrO2 and fluorite CeO2 instead of solid solution. The isolated t-ZrO2 crystallites block the contact between Au and CeO2, resulting in the agglomeration of gold clusters and, as a consequence, poor WGS activity of Au-CeZr-45 catalyst.

Development of sustainable routes for synthesis of zeolites is very important because of wide applications of zeolites at large scale in the fields of catalysis, adsorption, and separation. Here we report a novel and generalized route for synthesis of zeolites in the presence of NH4F from grinding the anhydrous starting solid materials and heating at 140-240 °C. Accordingly, zeolites of MFI, BEA*, EUO, and TON structures have been successfully synthesized. The presence of F(-) drives the crystallization of these zeolites from amorphous phase. Compared with conventional hydrothermal synthesis, the synthesis in this work not only simplifies the synthesis process but also significantly enhances the zeolite yields. These features should be potentially of great importance for industrial production of zeolites at large scale in the future.

Mesoporous zeolites are useful solid catalysts for conversion of bulky molecules because they offer fast mass transfer along with size and shape selectivity. We report here the successful synthesis of mesoporous aluminosilicate zeolite Beta from a commercial cationic polymer that acts as a dual-function template to generate zeolitic micropores and mesopores simultaneously. This is the first demonstration of a single nonsurfactant polymer acting as such a template. Using high-resolution electron microscopy and tomography, we discovered that the resulting material (Beta-MS) has abundant and highly interconnected mesopores. More importantly, we demonstrated using a three-dimensional electron diffraction technique that each Beta-MS particle is a single crystal, whereas most previously reported mesoporous zeolites are comprised of nanosized zeolitic grains with random orientations. The use of nonsurfactant templates is essential to gaining single-crystalline mesoporous zeolites. The single-crystalline nature endows Beta-MS with better hydrothermal stability compared with surfactant-derived mesoporous zeolite Beta. Beta-MS also exhibited remarkably higher catalytic activity than did conventional zeolite Beta in acid-catalyzed reactions involving large molecules.

A novel synthetic route is designed, employing both high temperature and a nontoxic organic structure-directing agent (SDA), for the synthesis of high silica zeolite Y. The N-methylpyridinium used as an organic SDA is stable during the synthesis, and the high silica zeolite Y shows high hydrothermal stability and good catalytic performance, as well as excellent adsorptive properties.

A family of polymer-attached phenanthrolines was prepared from solvothermal copolymerization of divinylbenzene with N-(1,10-phenanthroline-5-yl)acrylamide in different ratios. The polymer-supported copper catalysts were obtained through typical impregnation with copper(II) salts. The polymers and supported copper catalysts have been characterized by N2 adsortion, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and thermogravimetric analysis (TG); they exhibit a high surface area, hierarchical porosity, large pore volume, and high thermal and chemical stabilities. The copper catalyst has proved to be highly active for Glaser homocoupling of alkynes and Huisgen 1,3-diolar cycloaddition of alkynes with benzyl azide under mild conditions at low catalyst loading. The heterogeneous copper catalyst is more active than commonly used homogeneous and nonporous polystyrene-supported copper catalysts. In particular, the catalyst is easily recovered and can be recycled at least ten times without any obvious loss in catalytic activity. Metal leaching was prevented due to the strong binding ability of phenanthroline and products were not contaminated with copper, as determined by ICP analysis.

We have demonstrated that an organotemplate-free and seed-directed route has been successfully applied for synthesizing Fe-Beta zeolite with good crystallinity, high surface area, uniform crystals, and tetrahedral Al3+ and Fe3+ species. Catalytic tests for the direct decomposition of nitrous oxide indicate that the Fe-Beta exhibits excellent catalytic performance.

Graphene with its two-dimensional sheet of sp2-hybridized carbon is a hot topic in the fields of materials and chemistry due to its unique features. Herein, we demonstrate that sulfated graphene is an efficient solid catalyst for acid-catalyzed liquid reactions. The sulfated graphene was synthesized from a facile hydrothermal sulfonation of reduced graphene oxide with fuming sulfuric acid at 180 °C. Combined characterizations of XRD, Raman, and AFM techniques show that G-SO3H has a sheet structure (1–4 layers). IR spectroscopy shows that G-SO3H has a SO bond, and the XPS technique confirms the presence of an S element in G-SO3H. Acid–base titration indicates that the acidic concentration of sulfonic groups in the sulfated graphene is 1.2 mmol g−1. TG curves shows that the decomposition temperature (268 °C) of the sulfonic groups on the sulfated graphene is much higher than that of conventional SO3H-functionalized ordered mesoporous carbon (237 °C). Catalytic tests of the esterification of acetic acid with cyclohexanol, the esterification of acetic acid with 1-butanol, the Peckmann reaction of resorcinol with ethyl acetoacetate, and the hydration of propylene oxide show that sulfated graphene is much more active than the conventional solid acid catalysts of Amberlyst 15, OMC-SO3H, SO3H-functionalized ordered mesoporous silica (SBA-15-SO3H), graphene oxide, and reduced graphene oxide, which is attributed to the fact that the sulfated graphene almost has no limitation of mass transfer due to its unique sheet structure. Very importantly, the sulfated graphene has extraordinary recyclability in these reactions, which is attributed to the stable sulfonic groups on the sulfated graphene. The advantages, including high activities and good recyclability as well as simple preparation, are potentially important for industrial applications of the sulfated graphene as an efficient heterogeneous solid acid catalyst in the future.

Hierarchically porous aluminophosphates (SF-APOs) and metal substituted aluminophosphates (SF-MAPOs, M = Co, Fe, Cr) have been synthesized via simple grinding and heating in the absence of solvent. Characterization results show that these mesoporous aluminophosphates have a hierarchically microporous/mesoporous structure. In addition, metal atoms can be efficiently incorporated into the walls of mesoporous aluminophosphates, and the SF-CoAPO sample shows high catalytic activity in cyclohexene oxidation compared with microporous samples. Special features of the “solvent-free” synthesis route, such as increasing product yield, saving energy, elimination of pollution, and convenience for incorporation of heterogeneous atoms, ensure its great potential in the synthesis of porous materials.

We have demonstrated here for the first time that high-silica ferrierite zeolite, designated as ZJM-2, is successfully synthesized by an induction of CDO-structure zeolite building units in the absence of organic templates. The resulting ZJM-2 has good crystallinity, high surface area, similar crystals shape, only tetrahedral Al3+ species, and abundant acidic sites.