Please cite this article in press as: B. Feng, et al., The state of iron sites in the calcined FeAlPO 4 -5 and its tuning to the property of microporous AlPO 4 -5 molecular sieve, Catal. Today (2015), http://dx.
a b s t r a c tThe dispersion and coordination is critical to the nature of metal phases. This article describes an approach of single Fe sites preparing under microporous environment via calcination of the Fe incorporated FeAlPO 4 -5 as well as the tuning to the property of AlPO 4 -5 molecular sieve. The UV, Raman, EPR spectroscopies and H 2 -TPR characterization revealed through the extraction of framework Fe inside the micropore by calcination, extra-framework Fe sites were generated, the dispersion of which was higher than Fe sites of impregnated Fe 2 O 3 /AlPO 4 -5, and it indicated that part of Fe sites of FeAlPO 4 -5 can be with coordination vacancy. It is notable that the presence of single Fe sites was directly observed by Cs-corrected STEM micrograph. NH 3 -TPD and toluene-TPD results both exhibited an enhanced acidity and bond adsorption ability of FeAlPO 4 -5 toward AlPO 4 -5 and the impregnated sample Fe 2 O 3 /AlPO 4 -5. Finally, the FeAlPO 4 -5 turned out to perform higher thiophene desulfurization rate against AlPO 4 -5 and impregnated sample, which can be related to the improvement in the adsorption ability and reactivity for the single Fe sites inside the microporous environment.