Metal-Incorporated Mesoporous Silicates: Tunable Catalytic Properties and Applications

Anand Ramanathan; Bala Subramaniam

doi:10.3390/molecules23020263

Metal-Incorporated Mesoporous Silicates: Tunable Catalytic Properties and Applications

Molecules. 2018 Jan 29;23(2):263. doi: 10.3390/molecules23020263.

Authors

Anand Ramanathan¹, Bala Subramaniam^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66047, USA. anand@ku.edu.
² Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66047, USA. bsubramaniam@ku.edu.
³ Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA. bsubramaniam@ku.edu.

Abstract

A relatively new class of three-dimensional ordered mesoporous silicates, KIT-6, incorporated with Earth-abundant metals such as Zr, Nb, and W (termed as M-KIT-6), show remarkable tunability of acidity and metal dispersion depending on the metal content, type, and synthetic method. The metal-incorporation is carried out using one-pot synthesis procedures that are amenable to easy scale-up. By such tuning, M-KIT-6 catalysts are shown to provide remarkable activity and selectivity in industrially-significant reactions, such as alcohol dehydration, ethylene epoxidation, and metathesis of 2-butene and ethylene. We review how the catalytic properties of M-KIT-6 materials may be tailored depending on the application to optimize performance.

Keywords: Lewis acid; Zirconium; dehydration; epoxidation; mesoporous silica; metathesis; niobium; tungsten.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Catalysis
Dehydration
Metals, Heavy / chemistry*
Porosity
Silicon Dioxide / chemistry*

Substances

Metals, Heavy
Silicon Dioxide