(544ci) Surfactant-Templated MOF – 808: Effect of CTAB Incorporation on Final Properties and Catalytic Activity

Metal-Organic Frameworks based on hexanuclear zirconium clusters are considered promising for their application in heterogeneous catalysis due to their stability, textural properties, and tunable catalytic sites. Among these materials, MOF 808 emerges as an interesting catalyst due to its acidity since it possesses both Brønsted and Lewis sites. However, their microporous structure might hinder catalytic applications, particularly for processes in which porosity should be hierarchical comprising both meso and micropores. Surfactant-templating is considered a practical and useful strategy for the engineering of well-defined pore structures in solid materials. In this regard, the synthesis and engineering of hierarchical MOFs would allow improving the diffusion of reactants and products to the catalytic sites.

In this work, we performed the solvothermal synthesis of MOF 808 materials by using different organic ligand/CTAB ratios. We compared the properties of these materials with those prepared without a surfactant. The crystallinity, surface area and porosity, surface chemical composition, and acid properties of the materials were evaluated. Results showed that CTAB leads to the formation of hierarchical materials whose basic structure corresponded to that of the unmodified MOF 808. An evaluation of the other physicochemical properties mentioned before is currently underway. The catalytic performance of the synthesized MOFs is also at present tested in the esterification of different alcohols with acetic acid using microwave-assisted and conventional reflux reactors. Furthermore, the catalytic results are compared with known catalysts as amberlyst.