Tandem catalysis with double-shelled hollow spheres
Abstract
Metal–zeolite composites with metal (oxide) and acid sites are promising catalysts for integrating multiple reactions in tandem to produce a wide variety of wanted products without separating or purifying the intermediates. However, the conventional design of such materials often leads to uncontrolled and non-ideal spatial distributions of the metal inside/on the zeolites, limiting their catalytic performance. Here we demonstrate a simple strategy for synthesizing double-shelled, contiguous metal oxide@zeolite hollow spheres (denoted as MO@ZEO DSHSs) with controllable structural parameters and chemical compositions. This involves the self-assembly of zeolite nanocrystals onto the surface of metal ion-containing carbon spheres followed by calcination and zeolite growth steps. The step-by-step formation mechanism of the material is revealed using mainly in situ Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction and ex situ electron microscopy. We demonstrate that it is due to this structure that an Fe₂O₃@H-ZSM-5 DSHSs-showcase catalyst exhibits superior performance compared with various conventionally structured Fe₂O₃-H-ZSM-5 catalysts in gasoline production by the Fischer–Tropsch synthesis. This work is expected to advance the rational synthesis and research of hierarchically hollow, core–shell, multifunctional catalyst materials.
Additional Information
© 2022 Nature Publishing Group. Received 13 December 2020; Accepted 02 December 2021; Published 27 January 2022. B.M.W. acknowledges financial support from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) in the frame of a Gravitation Program MCEC (Netherlands Center for Multiscale Catalytic Energy Conversion, www.mcec-researchcenter.nl). X.X. (Utrecht University) acknowledges financial support from the EU H2020-MSCA-ITN-2015 project 'MULTIMAT' (project no. 676045). K.C. and Y.W. acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 91945301, 22121001 and 22072120). J.X. thanks D. Wezendonk (Utrecht University) for his help with the in situ XRD measurements. Data availability: The data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information files. Source data are provided with this paper. These authors contributed equally: Jiadong Xiao, Kang Cheng. Author Contributions: J.X., B.M.W., K.C. and Y.W. conceived and designed the experiments. B.M.W. and Y.W. supervised the project. J.X. synthesized and characterized the materials, analysed the data and wrote the initial manuscript. K.C. and M.W. performed the catalytic reactions, analysed the resulting data and drafted the catalytic reaction part. X.X. and M.A.v.H. performed the (S)TEM-related measurements. Y.L. and T.H. performed the ex situ IR and in situ Raman measurements, respectively. S.X. performed a part of the SEM measurements and the ex situ Raman measurements. D.F. and K.B. contributed to the exploration of the zeolite secondary growth conditions. A.v.B. helped with the mechanistic understanding of the self-assembly process. J.X., B.M.W., K.C. and Y.W. revised the paper with contributions from all the other co-authors. The authors declare no competing interests. Peer review information: Nature Materials thanks Michael Claeys and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - 41563_2021_1183_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
Supplemental Material - 41563_2021_1183_MOESM2_ESM.xlsx
Supplemental Material - 41563_2021_1183_MOESM3_ESM.xlsx
Supplemental Material - 41563_2021_1183_MOESM4_ESM.xlsx
Supplemental Material - 41563_2021_1183_MOESM5_ESM.xlsx
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 111899
- DOI
- 10.1038/s41563-021-01183-0
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20211116-182734270
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)
- 676045
- European Research Council (ERC)
- 91945301
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- 22121001
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- 22072120
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Created
-
2022-01-28Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2022-05-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field