Sulfated and phosphated mesoporous Nb oxide in the benzylation of anisole and toluene by benzyl alcohol.

Materials possessing the high acidities of sulfated zirconia and the diffusion properties of mesoporous oxides are predicted to have numerous applications in the petrochemical industry. Because of surface deactivation and loss of structure under highly acidic conditions, there are few examples of materials which meet these specifications. In this work, mesoporous Nb oxide was treated with 1 M sulfuric acid or phosphoric acid and evaluated for their catalytic activities in the benzylation of toluene or anisole with benzyl alcohol. Characterization by XRD, nitrogen adsorption/desorption, and TEM demonstrated that the mesostructure was surprisingly stable to acid treatment. Pyridine adsorption and infrared spectroscopy (IR) showed a mixture of Lewis and Bronsted sites before and after acid treatment. Titration with a series of indicators demonstrated that sulfated mesoporous Nb oxide possesses a pKa of -8.2 and 31.784 mmol/g acid sites, roughly 100 times stronger than either bulk phosphated or sulfated niobia, which both possess pKa values in the range of -3.0. The best catalytic results in this study were achieved when using mesoporous Nb oxide treated with sulfuric acid; the conversion of benzyl alcohol with anisole to the benzylation product was 100% in 30 min, which is 200 times faster than the bulk catalyst. The extremely high activity was rationalized by the high number of strong Brønsted sites on the surface coupled with the superior diffusion properties of the mesoporous system.