Amines, alkylation shape selectivity

Anhydrous zinc phosphonate Zn(03PCH3) is unreactive with water but reacts with primary amines (chain length up to Cg) and ammonia to form intercalation compounds. The intercalation is shape selective as amines with branching at the a-carbon cannot coordinate to the zinc. Different structures are noted for even and odd carbon chain lengths with odd numbers of carbons in the alkyl chain forming a more efficiently packed interdigitated structure.420... 

Zeolite NU-87, if containing Bronsted-acid sites, is an active catalyst for a large variety of acid catalyzed reactions hke toluene disproportionation, alkylation of benzene with ethylene, amination of methanol to methylamines etc. [51]. Moreover, it was found to possess interesting shape selective properties in the conversion of m-xylene [52] and of polynuclear aromatics, e.g. methylnaphtha-lenes [53]. On non-acidic (i.e. Cs+-exchanged) zeolite NU-87, loaded with small amounts of platinum, n-alkanes like n-hexane or n-octane can be dehydrocycliz-ed in high yields to the corresponding aromatics [54]. 

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