Nanocoating of Hydrophobic Mesoporous Silica around MIL-101Cr for Enhanced Catalytic Activity and Stability.

The metal-organic framework (MOF) MIL-101Cr was readily encapsulated by a very thin shell (around 30 nm) of hydrophobic mesoporous silica, which replicates the irregular shape of the MOF nanocrystals. Such a silica shell facilitates the diffusion of hydrophobic reactants with enhancement of the catalytic activity of the MOF and significantly improved catalytic stability of the MOF in the oxidation of indene.

Brønsted instead of Lewis acidity in functionalized MIL-101Cr MOFs for efficient heterogeneous (nano-MOF) catalysis in the condensation reaction of aldehydes with alcohols.

Porous chromium(III) 2-nitro-, 2-amino-, and nonfunctionalized terephthalate (MIL-101Cr) metal organic frameworks are heterogeneous catalysts for diacetal formation from benzaldehyde and methanol (B-M reaction) as well as other aldehydes and alcohols. MIL-101Cr-NO2 obtained by direct reaction between CrO3 and 2-nitro-terephthalate showed the highest activity with 99% conversion in the B-M reaction in 90 min and turnover numbers of 114. The activity decreased in the order MIL-101Cr-NO2 > MIL-101Cr > MIL-101Cr-NH2. Within different samples of nonfunctionalized MIL-101Cr the activity increased with surface area. Methanol gas sorption of the different MIL materials correlates with the BET surface area and pore volume but not with the diacetalization activity. Benzaldehyde adsorption from heptane showed no significant difference for the different MILs. Gas sorption studies of CD3CN to probe for a higher Lewis acidity in MIL-101Cr-NO2 remained inconclusive. A high B-M catalytic activity of wet MIL-101Cr-NO2 excluded significant contributions from coordinatively unsaturated Lewis-acid sites. pH measurements of methanol dispersions of the MIL materials gave the most acidic pH (as low as 1.9) for MIL-101Cr-NO2, which significantly increased over MIL-101Cr (3.0) to MIL-101Cr-NH2 (3.3). The increase in acidity is of short range or a surface effect to the heterogeneous MIL particles as protons dissociating from the polarized aqua ligands (Cr-OH2) have to stay near the insoluble counteranionic framework. The variation in Brønsted acidity of MIL-101Cr-NO2 > MIL-101Cr ≈ MIL-101Cr-NH2 correlates with the withdrawing effect of NO2 and the diacetalization activity. The catalytic B-M activity of soluble, substitution-inert, and acidic Cr(NO3)3·9H2O supports the Brønsted-acid effect of the MIL materials. Filtration and centrifugation experiments with MIL-101Cr-NO2 revealed that about 2/3 of the catalytic activity comes from nano-MOF particles with a diameter below 200 nm. The MIL-101Cr-NO2 catalysts can be recycled five times with very little loss in activity. The diacetalization activity of MIL-101Cr-NO2 decreases with the alcohol chain length from methanol over ethanol, n-propanol, n-butanol, to almost inactive n-pentanol, while conversions for benzaldehyde, paratolylaldehyde, 4-chlorobenzaldehyde, and cyclohexanone all reach 90% or more after 90 min.

Synthesis of Nano/Microsized MIL-101Cr Through Combination of Microwave Heating and Emulsion Technology for Mixed-Matrix Membranes.

Nano/microsized MIL-101Cr was synthesized by microwave heating of emulsions for the use as a composite with Matrimid mixed-matrix membranes (MMM) to enhance the performance of a mixed-gas-separation. As an example, we chose CO2/CH4 separation. Although the incorporation of MIL-101Cr in MMMs is well-known, the impact of nanosized MIL-101Cr in MMMs is new and shows an improvement compared to microsized MIL-101Cr under the same conditions and mixed-gas permeation. In order to reproducibly obtain nanoMIL-101Cr microwave heating was supplemented by carrying out the reaction of chromium nitrate and 1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid in heptane-in-water emulsions with the anionic surfactant sodium oleate as emulsifier. The use of this emulsion with the phase inversion temperature (PIT) method offered controlled nucleation and growth of nanoMIL-101 particles to an average size of <100 nm within 70 min offering high apparent BET surface areas (2,900 m2 g-1) and yields of 45%. Concerning the CO2/CH4 separation, the best result was obtained with 24 wt.% of nanoMIL-101Cr@Matrimid, leading to 32 Barrer in CO2 permeability compared to six Barrer for the neat Matrimid polymer membrane and 21 Barrer for the maximum possible 20 wt.% of microMIL-101Cr@Matrimid. The nanosized filler allowed reaching a higher loading where the permeability significantly increased above the predictions from Maxwell and free-fractional-volume modeling. These improvements for MMMs based on nanosized MIL-101Cr are promising for other gas separations.