A Carbonylation Zeolite with Specific Nanosheet Structure for Efficient Catalysis

Abstract

Up to now, the member of zeolite family has expanded to more than 230. However, only little part of them have been reported as catalysts used in reactions. Discovering potential zeolites for reactions is significantly important, especially in industrial applications. A carbonylation zeolite catalyst Al-RUB-41 has special morphology and channel orientation. The 8-MR channel of Al-RUB-41 is just perpendicular to its thin sheet, making a very short mass-transfer distance along 8-MR. This specific nature endows Al-RUB-41 with efficient catalytic ability to dimethyl ether carbonylation reaction with beyond 95% methyl acetate selectivity. Compared with the most widely accepted carbonylation zeolite catalysts, Al-RUB-41 behaves a much better catalytic stability than H-MOR and a greatly enhanced catalytic activity than H-ZSM-35. A space-confined deactivation mechanism over Al-RUB-41 is proposed. By erasing the acid sites on outer surface, Al-RUB-41@SiO2 catalyst achieves a long-time and high-efficiency activity without any deactivation trend.

Zeolite nanosheets for catalysis

“…37 Due to shortening diffusion path lengths, the zeolite nanosheets have excellent mass transfer, displaying superior catalytic performances in many acid-catalyzed and metal-catalyzed reactions such as the conversion of methanol, isomerization, cracking, carbonylation, alkylation, acylation, and oxidation. [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] In this tutorial review, we briefly summarize the recent progresses in the synthesis of zeolite nanosheets and their catalytic performances, as shown in Fig. 1.…”

“…Due to shortening diffusion path lengths, the zeolite nanosheets have excellent mass transfer, displaying superior catalytic performances in many acid-catalyzed and metal-catalyzed reactions such as the conversion of methanol, isomerization, cracking, carbonylation, alkylation, acylation, and oxidation. 38–50…”

“…1. 7–50 The synthetic strategies are mainly focus on a sustainable method, which is a key for the industrial applications of zeolite nanosheets. After a simple introduction (Section 1), the advances in the strategies for the synthesis of zeolite nanosheets are given (Section 2), followed by the catalytic performances of these zeolite nanosheets (Section 3).…”

Recent advances in the routes and catalysts for ethanol synthesis from syngas

“…Other new zeolites had been employed to catalyse DME carbonylation. [264][265][266] The MOR zeolite possesses parallel channels of 12-MR and 8-MR along the c-axis. The FER zeolite contains parallel channels of 10 MR and 6 MR along the c-axis, and the intersected 8-MR channel along the b-axis.…”

“…For instance, Tsubaki et al discovered that the zeolite HEU-12 exhibited excellent catalytic stability and selectivity for synthesis of methyl acetate from DME carbonylation. 259,265 At present, the reaction mechanisms of DME carbonylation to MA have been studied for many years, and the zeolite catalysts also provide good activity and MA selectivity. However, the stability of the zeolite catalysts is still the key problem, and needs to be further improved.…”