Zhe Hong, Lei Miao, Jialin Tan, Yang Liu, Shujing Chen, Lihua Deng, Qun Yang, Xianlong Gao, Fangtao Huang, Zhirong Zhu
{"title":"Urea-induced platelike ZSM-5 zeolite with Si zoning for efficient alkylation of toluene with ethanol to para-ethyltoluene","authors":"Zhe Hong, Lei Miao, Jialin Tan, Yang Liu, Shujing Chen, Lihua Deng, Qun Yang, Xianlong Gao, Fangtao Huang, Zhirong Zhu","doi":"10.1039/d5qi00100e","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Platelike zeolites with short diffusion pathway are promising catalysts due to the mass transfer advantages. Herein, a platelike ZSM-5 with shortened b‑axis thicknesses (~90 nm) was synthesized using a urea-assisted crystallization strategy. We disclose the significant application of this platelike catalyst in the reaction of toluene alkylation with ethanol to produce para-ethyltoluene (p-ET). The reaction results demonstrate that this platelike ZSM-5 exhibits a higher toluene conversion (58.3%) and ET selectivity (88.7%) than that of conventional ZSM-5. The improvement should be primarily due to the shortened straight channels of platelike ZSM-5, which facilitate the mass transport and increase the accessibility of acid sites. Nevertheless, the shortened b-axis of platelike ZSM-5 seems to have no significant positive impact on para-selectivity for p-ET. Hence, we construct a Si-zoned external surface on the platelike ZSM-5 by means of the surface modification strategy to accurately passivate the surface acid sites, thereby inhibiting the isomerization reaction, and achieving higher selectivity for p-ET (> 95%) and good catalytic stability (>100 h) in the reaction of toluene alkylation with ethanol.","PeriodicalId":79,"journal":{"name":"Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers","volume":"57 19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers","FirstCategoryId":"92","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1039/d5qi00100e","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, INORGANIC & NUCLEAR","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Platelike zeolites with short diffusion pathway are promising catalysts due to the mass transfer advantages. Herein, a platelike ZSM-5 with shortened b‑axis thicknesses (~90 nm) was synthesized using a urea-assisted crystallization strategy. We disclose the significant application of this platelike catalyst in the reaction of toluene alkylation with ethanol to produce para-ethyltoluene (p-ET). The reaction results demonstrate that this platelike ZSM-5 exhibits a higher toluene conversion (58.3%) and ET selectivity (88.7%) than that of conventional ZSM-5. The improvement should be primarily due to the shortened straight channels of platelike ZSM-5, which facilitate the mass transport and increase the accessibility of acid sites. Nevertheless, the shortened b-axis of platelike ZSM-5 seems to have no significant positive impact on para-selectivity for p-ET. Hence, we construct a Si-zoned external surface on the platelike ZSM-5 by means of the surface modification strategy to accurately passivate the surface acid sites, thereby inhibiting the isomerization reaction, and achieving higher selectivity for p-ET (> 95%) and good catalytic stability (>100 h) in the reaction of toluene alkylation with ethanol.