Performances of Fe-[Al, B]MFI catalysts in benzene hydroxylation with N2O

Steam Reforming of Bioethanol Using Metallic Catalysts on Zeolitic Supports: An Overview

Hydrogen is considered one of the energy carriers of the future due to its high mass-based calorific value. Hydrogen combustion generates only water, and it can be used directly as a fuel for electricity/heat generation. Nowadays, about 95% of the hydrogen is produced via conversion of fossil fuels. One of the future challenges is to find processes based on a renewable source to produce hydrogen in a sustainable way. Bioethanol is a promising candidate, since it can be obtained from the fermentation of biomasses, and easily converted into hydrogen via steam catalytic reforming. The correct design of catalysts and catalytic supports plays a crucial role in the optimization of this reaction. The best results have to date been achieved by noble metals, but their high costs make them unsuitable for industrial application. Very satisfactory results have also been achieved by using nickel and cobalt as active metals. Furthermore, it has been found that the support physical and chemical properties strongly affect the catalytic performance. In this review, zeolitic materials used for the ethanol steam reforming reaction are overviewed. We discuss thermodynamics, reaction mechanisms and the role of active metal, as well as the main noble and non-noble active compounds involved in ethanol steam reforming reaction. Finally, an overview of the zeolitic supports reported in the literature that can be profitably used to produce hydrogen through ethanol steam reforming is presented.

Lanthanum modified Fe-ZSM-5 zeolites for selective methane oxidation with H2O2

Lanthanum modified Fe-ZSM-5 catalyst can both increase selective methane oxidation performance and decrease H2O2 consumption.

The Effect of Zeolite Features on the Dehydration Reaction of Methanol to Dimethyl Ether: Catalytic Behaviour and Kinetics

The synthesis of dimethyl ether (DME) is an important step in the production of chemical intermediate because it is possible to prepare it by direct hydrogenation of CO₂. This paper reports the effect of different zeolitic frameworks (such as: BEA, EUO, FER, MFI, MOR, MTW, TON) on methanol conversion, DME selectivity and catalyst deactivation. The effect of crystal size, Si/Al ratio and acidity of the investigated catalysts have been also studied. Finally, the kinetic parameters (such as: ∆H, ∆S and ∆G) have been evaluated together with pre-exponential factor and activation energy for catalysts with FER and MFI structure topology.

CuZnZr-Zeolite Hybrid Grains for DME Synthesis: New Evidence on the Role of Metal-Acidic Features on the Methanol Conversion Step

The assessment of the catalytic performance of “hybrid” metal/zeolite catalysts (based on FER or MFI structure and CuZnZr metal complexes) in the methanol dehydration step to DME has been studied in this work. The results clearly show that there is an important effect of the interaction between metal and acid sites affecting the acid catalyst performances. Additionally, deactivation, studied by means of a Timo-on-Stream (TOS) test, was affected by the type of zeolite structure used for hybrid catalyst preparation. The decrease in DME selectivity can be attributed to the cooperation of metal and acid sites in the production of different compounds (mainly methyl formate and dimethoxy methane) converting methanol and DME. The presence of these compounds (indicating different reaction pathways active) was found to be dependent on the zeolite structure and on the type of co-precipitation medium (water or ethanol) used to prepare the hybrid catalyst.

Selective Oxidation of Methane over Fe-Zeolites by In Situ Generated H2O2

Liquid-phase selective oxidation of methane into methane oxygenates, including methanol and formic acid, with molecular oxygen was investigated using Fe-zeolites and Pd/activated carbon in the presence of molecular hydrogen as a reducing agent. Various Fe-zeolites such as Fe-ZSM-5, Fe-mordenite, Fe-β, Fe-Y, and Fe-ferrierite were prepared by ion-exchange and compared for this reaction. Among them, Fe-ZSM-5 was selected for further study because this catalyst showed high activity in the selective oxidation of methane with relatively less leaching. Further, the effect of reaction temperature, pH, and the amount of catalyst was examined, and detailed investigations revealed that the leached Fe species, which were facilitated in the presence of acid, were mainly responsible for methane oxidation under the given reaction conditions.

Direct versus acetalization routes in the reaction network of catalytic HMF etherification

The etherification of HMF (5-hydroxymethylfurfural) to EMF (5-(ethoxymethyl)furan-2-carbaldehyde) is studied over a series of MFI-type zeolite catalysts containing different heteroatoms (B, Fe, Al), aiming to understand the effect of different isomorph substitutions in the MFI framework on the reaction pathways of HMF conversion.

Bimetallic V and Ti incorporated MCM-41 molecular sieves and their catalytic properties

V and Ti atoms incorporated into the framework of MCM-41 in the form of tetrahedral coordination with excellent catalytic performance.

Light alkane oxidation using catalysts prepared by chemical vapour impregnation: tuning alcohol selectivity through catalyst pre-treatment

Heat treating Fe/ZSM-5 under hydrogen leads to high dispersion of Fe species and higher alcohol selectivity in the oxidation of alkanes, as compared to oxygen treated catalysts.

Structure and nuclearity of active sites in Fe-zeolites: comparison with iron sites in enzymes and homogeneous catalysts

Fe-ZSM-5 and Fe-silicalite zeolites efficiently catalyse several oxidation reactions which find close analogues in the oxidation reactions catalyzed by homogeneous and enzymatic compounds. The iron centres are highly dispersed in the crystalline matrix and on highly diluted samples, mononuclear and dinuclear structures are expected to become predominant. The crystalline and robust character of the MFI framework has allowed to hypothesize that the catalytic sites are located in well defined crystallographic positions. For this reason these catalysts have been considered as the closest and best defined heterogeneous counterparts of heme and non heme iron complexes and of Fenton type Fe(2+) homogeneous counterparts. On this basis, an analogy with the methane monooxygenase has been advanced several times. In this review we have examined the abundant literature on the subject and summarized the most widely accepted views on the structure, nuclearity and catalytic activity of the iron species. By comparing the results obtained with the various characterization techniques, we conclude that Fe-ZSM-5 and Fe-silicalite are not the ideal samples conceived before and that many types of species are present, some active and some other silent from adsorptive and catalytic point of view. The relative concentration of these species changes with thermal treatments, preparation procedures and loading. Only at lowest loadings the catalytically active species become the dominant fraction of the iron species. On the basis of the spectroscopic titration of the active sites by using NO as a probe, we conclude that the active species on very diluted samples are isolated and highly coordinatively unsaturated Fe(2+) grafted to the crystalline matrix. Indication of the constant presence of a smaller fraction of Fe(2+) presumably located on small clusters is also obtained. The nitrosyl species formed upon dosing NO from the gas phase on activated Fe-ZSM-5 and Fe-silicalite, have been analyzed in detail and the similarities and differences with the cationic, heme and non heme homogeneous counterparts have been evidenced. The same has been done for the oxygen species formed by N(2)O decomposition on isolated sites, whose properties are more similar to those of the (FeO)(2+) in cationic complexes (included the [(H(2)O)(5)FeO](2+)"brown ring" complex active in Fenton reaction) than to those of ferryl groups in heme and non heme counterparts.

Formation of 4H-1,2-benzoxazines by intramolecular cyclization of nitroalkanes. Scope of aromatic oxygen-functionalization reaction involving a nitro oxygen atom and mechanistic insights

In this paper, we deal with the scope and mechanism of the strong Brønsted acid-catalyzed intramolecular cyclization reaction of methyl 3-aryl-2-nitropropionates to give 4H-1,2-benzoxazines. This reaction can be regarded as an oxygen functionalization of the aromatic ring wherein the oxygen atom is derived from the nitro group in the molecule, and it is favored by the presence of electron-withdrawing groups on the benzene ring. The reaction rate is strongly influenced by the acidity of the reaction medium, and the methyl ester group on the alpha-carbon atom with respect to the nitro group facilitates deprotonation at the alpha-position to give aci-nitro species in situ. Some correlation was found between the electron-withdrawing ability of the substituents on benzene, represented in terms of Hammett's sigma p value of the substituents, and the rate of disappearance of the starting substrate leading to the product in trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (TFSA)/trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) medium. This would be because the acidity of the alpha-proton with respect to the nitro group is influenced by the substituents on the benzene ring. Experimentally, we excluded the 6pi electrocyclization mechanism involving deprotonation of the benzyl proton of the protonated aci-nitro species. Alternative cyclization mechanisms involving equilibrating monocationic aci-nitro species bearing O-protonated ester carbonyl group and O-protonated aci-nitro species were calculated to be highly energetically unfavorable. Diprotonated or protosolvative species can reduce the activation energy significantly, and this is consistent with the observed acidity-dependent nature of the cyclization.