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Surface Engineering of Mesoporous Silica for Ti-Based Epoxidation Catalysts

The active sites for epoxydation of alkenes in silica supported titanium catalysts are isolated Ti(IV) ions. The strategy for site isolation consists here to graft titanium isopropoxyde by reaction with surface silanol groups, the density of which is decreased by chemical capping instead of the energy consuming thermal treatment. The molecular stencil patterning technique (MSP) is applied to enforce site isolation. In mesostructured porous silicas, the partly extracted templating surfactant plays the role of a MSP mask during capping. Then, the elimination of the remaining surfactant liberates silanol islands for the grafting of Ti(IV) ions. Quantitative FT-IR and 29Si MAS-NMR studies reveal that the inverse organic stencil made of grafted organosilyls groups is maintained at each synthesis steps. Diffuse reflectance UV spectroscopy in correlation with the catalytic activity in epoxidation of cyclohexene show that these original surfaces favor the formation of a much larger number of isolated mononuclear sites than the unmodified silica surfaces. The demonstration is obtained using a dipodal organosilyl function, 1-2-ethanebis (dimethylsilyl) (EBDMS) that is much more stable than the classic and monopodal, trimethylsilyl (TMS). Besides, it is shown that the inverse organic stencil (from EBDMS or TMS) is stabilized further by thermal treatment while its dispersive effect on titanium can be preserved. The proof relies on a quantitative 29Si solid State NMR study. Finally, a refined description of the grafting mode of titanium was realized by simulation of the UV spectra of a large series of catalysts assuming only 5 different types of species including isolated species and clusters differentiated by the range of sizes.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:CCSD/oai:tel.archives-ouvertes.fr:tel-00776398
Date13 November 2012
CreatorsFang, Lin, Fang, Lin
PublisherEcole normale supérieure de lyon - ENS LYON
Source SetsCCSD theses-EN-ligne, France
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypePhD thesis

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