Post-synthesis pore expansion of mesoporous silica SBA-15 in the organic template removal via solvothermal treatment

Low-Temperature Catalytic Transfer Hydrogenation of Biomass-Derived Furfural over Irreversibly Adsorbed and Highly Dispersed Zr(IV) Species

“…The N 2 adsorption–desorption isotherms of the four samples (Figure b) are all type-IV isotherms with H1-type hysteresis loops at P / P 0 = 0.65–0.85, suggesting the mesoporous structure of the catalysts inherited from SBA-15. The textural parameters of the catalysts are shown in Table , and compared with SBA-15, the specific surface areas of adZr­(IV)/SBA-15-Et and adZr­(IV)/SBA-15-H 2 O obviously decreased; meanwhile, the pore diameter and volume of adZr­(IV)/SBA-15-H 2 O slightly reduced, revealing the successful loading and good dispersion of Zr­(IV) species in the pores, and, however, the pore diameter and volume of adZr­(IV)/SBA-15-Et sparingly enlarged, probably due to the pore wall shrinkage induced by the solvothermal effect of ethanol at the preparation temperature of 80 °C . Besides, further increases in the average pore diameter and volume were found for adZr­(IV)/SBA-15-Et-cal obtained by calcination, and similar phenomena were also reported in other literature. , The IR spectra (Figure c) show that the Si–OH stretching vibration band at 961 cm –1 in the three zirconium-containing samples was significantly weakened, indirectly demonstrated that Zr­(IV) species were successfully grafted on the surface Si–OH groups of SBA-15. , …”