Synthesis of Aluminophosphate Molecular Sieves in Alkaline Media

Unlike conventional aluminosilicate zeolites synthesized in alkaline media, aluminophosphate molecular sieves (AlPOs) have always been prepared under acidic conditions in the past three decades; this has been regarded as one of essential factors for synthesis, except for the case of silica-substituted analogues (SAPOs). For the first time, we demonstrate herein a simple and generalized route for synthesizing various types of aluminophosphate molecular sieves in alkaline media. A series of aluminophosphate sieves and their analogues have been prepared with different quaternary ammonium cations as structure-directing agents in this manner. The above successes have extended the systematic media from acidic or neutral to alkaline for the preparation of a series of aluminophosphate molecular sieves, which possibly open an alternative route for the synthesis of aluminophosphate molecular sieves.     

Modeling the framework stability and catalytic activity of pure and transition metal-doped zeotypes

We present a thorough computational study of transition metal-doped zeolite and aluminophosphate (AlPO) frameworks. The structural and electronic chemistry of the dopants is examined with ab initio quantum mechanical calculations, and the results correlated with the Brønsted and Lewis acid strength, and with the redox potential of the dopant ions in the framework. The energetics of doping is provided, and is employed to analyze the mode of dopant incorporation, and its site ordering in the microporous framework. In total, 23 dopant ions are examined in the isostructural framework of chabasite and AlPO-34. These cover most of the isomorphous framework replacements known to occur experimentally, but also framework replacements that have not yet been achieved. In this case, ab initio modeling techniques are employed in a predictive way. Finally, we present a computational study of the alkene epoxidation on titanosilicates, that covers the whole catalytic cycle.     

Is the 31P chemical shift anisotropy of aluminophosphates a useful parameter for NMR crystallography?

The ³¹P chemical shift anisotropy (CSA) offers a potential source of new information to help determine the structures of aluminophosphate (AlPO) framework materials. We investigate how to measure the CSAs, which are small (span of ~20–30 ppm) for AlPOs, demonstrating the need for CSA-amplification experiments (often in conjunction with ²⁷Al and/or ¹H decoupling) at high magnetic field (20.0 T) to obtain accurate values. We show that the most shielded component of the chemical shift tensor, δ₃₃, is related to the length of the shortest P─O bond, whereas the more deshielded components, δ₁₁ and δ₂₂ can be related more readily to the mean P─O bond lengths and P─O─Al angles. Using the case of Mg-doped STA-2 as an example, the CSA is shown to be much larger for P(OAl)_4–n(OMg)_n environments, primarily owing to a much shorter P─O(Mg) bond affecting δ₃₃, however, because the mean P─O bond lengths and P─O─T (T = Al, Mg) bond angles do not change significantly between P(OAl)₄ and P(OAl)_4–n(OMg)_n sites, the isotropic chemical shifts for these species are similar, leading to overlapped spectral lines. When the CSA information is included, spectral assignment becomes unambiguous, therefore, although the specialist conditions required might preclude the routine measurement of ³¹P CSAs in AlPOs, in some cases (particularly doped materials), the experiments can still provide valuable additional information for spectral assignment.     

Isopropylation of benzene with 2-propanol over substituted large pore aluminophosphate-based molecular sieves

Large pore aluminophosphate-based molecular sieves like AlPO₄-5, MAPO-5, MnAPO-5 and ZAPO-5 were synthesised hydrothermally using triethylamine as a structure directing agent. These materials were characterised by X-ray diffraction (XRD),²⁷A1 and³¹P MAS-NMR, ICP-MS,n-butylamine-TPD, BET and SEM. The catalytic performance of these materials was tested for isopropylation of benzene with 2-propanol at 250, 300, 350 and 400°C. The products were cumene,p-DIPB (p-diisopropylbenzene) andm-DIPB (m-diisopropylbenzene). MnAPO-5 was found to be more active than the other catalysts. Maximum conversion (20%) was noted at 350°C over MnAPO-5. The selectivity to DIPB was found to decrease with time on stream but the selectivity to cumene showed an increase after 3 h of time on stream