Composite ZSM-5/MCM-41 material obtained from a green resource and its enhanced catalytic performance in the reaction of vinyl acetate and isoamyl alcohol

Abstract

Composite ZSM-5/MCM-41 material has been obtained by hydrothermal synthesis of alkali-treated ZSM-5 zeolite prepared from Expanded Perlite. A two-step procedure that avoids the traditional dual template synthesis strategy and involves the use of a natural resource as a raw material has been studied. The so-obtained micro-mesoporous material was characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, N2 adsorption-desorption measurements and thermal gravimetric analysis. Surface acidity studies of adsorbed pyridine and 2,6-lutidine demonstrated that mesopores in ZSM-5/MCM-41 have dramatically enhanced their accessibility property. For determination of the catalytic activity, the H-ZSM-5/MCM-41 and a microporous H-ZSM-5 were used as catalysts for the reaction between vinyl acetate and isoamyl alcohol at 90 °C. H-ZSM-5 suffers to rapid deposition of coke and acetaldehyde diisoamyl acetal was obtained as the primary product at the beginning of the reaction, while the H-ZSM-5/MCM-41 evidenced an enhanced conversion and improved selectivity towards isoamyl acetate.