Acidity versus catalytic activity in bi-structured nanomaterials

Abstract

Mesoporous nanomaterials were synthesized from zeolitic precursors and characterized by XRD, adsorption-desorption of N2, ICP-OES, SEM, TEM, FT-IR and adsorption-desorption of pyridine followed by FT-IR. These materials were catalytically evaluated in the Beckmann reaction, and the reaction products were analyzed by gas chromatography and identified by GC-MS. The activity and the distribution of reaction products were related to the acidic strength of the materials. Thus, it was possible to generate bi-structured catalysts with sites in a certain range of acid strength as potential materials for catalytic processes that require some acidity grade, such as the Beckmann reaction of cyclohexanone oxime for obtaining different products of industrial interest.