Acid-Mediated Synthesis of Ordered Mesoporous Aluminosilicates: The Challenge and the Promise

A new intrinsic hydrolysis method was employed, for the first-time, to synthesize well-ordered H-AlSBA-15 with trivalent aluminium exclusively in the tetrahedral framework structure of SBA-15. Unlike other methods, which involve incorporation of aluminium ions in both the framework (Brønsted) and non-framework (Lewis) sites of the silicate matrix, the intrinsic hydrolysis method isomorphously substitutes aluminium ions in the tetrahedral network even at high aluminium content. This unique approach relies mainly on the hydrolysis rates of the inorganic (silicon and aluminium) precursors used for the preparation in such a way that the condensation occurs simultaneously so as to overcome the usually encountered difficulties in stabilizing aluminium ions in the silicate matrix. In this way, we could successfully synthesize high quality Brønsted acidic H-AlSBA-15, hitherto not reported. The synthesized materials were systematically characterized by various analytical, spectroscopic, and imaging techniques, including XRD, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area measurements, TEM, SEM, ²⁹ Si and ²⁷ Al magic angle spinning NMR spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and NH₃ temperature-programmed desorption (TPD). The characterization results reveal the presence of a highly porous structure (with narrow pores) and tetrahedrally coordinated trivalent aluminium in the silicate matrix with more medium to strong Brønsted acid sites. The resulting high quality catalysts exhibit excellent activity for tert-butylation of phenol with high selectivity towards para-tert-butyl phenol and 2,4-di-tert-butyl phenol.