Clays stabilized pillared catalysts

Fast deactivation rates due to coking and the limited hydrothermal stability of pillared clays have probably retarded the commercial development of these new type of catalysts and prevented (to date) their acceptance by chemical producers and refiners. However, there is a large economic incentive justifying efforts to convert inexpensive (i.e. 40-100/ton) smectites into commercially viable (pillared clay) catalysts (56). Therefore, it is believed that work on the chemical modification of natural (and synthetic) clays, and work on the preparation and characterization of new pillared clays with improved hydrothermal stability are, and will remain, areas of interest to the academic community, as well as to researchers in industrial laboratories (56). 

In order to improve the textural properties of particle-clay nanohybrids, bulky organic cations are intercalated as a kind of template into particle-intercalated clays before stabilization procedures. Intercalation of the organic cations results in the removal of some of the intercalated nanoparticles and/or in their rearrangement. Subsequent calcination leads to formation of additional pore space that is highly correlated to the geometry and size of the templates. This technique allows fine tuning of textural properties in the preparation of particle-clay nanohybrids. The clay nanohybrids intercalated with metals, oxides, and complexes have a broad range of applications. In particular, metal oxide particle-pillared clays have excellent potentials as catalysts, catalyst supports, selective adsorbents, etc. " ... 

The last decade has seen a growing interest for the study of pillared clays and several papers on the preparation and characterization of these microporous materials appear in the literature. The main emphasis was oriented towards the preparation of new systems or catalysts presenting advanced structural-textural properties and thermal stability (1). 

The layered double hydroxides have been of interest as anion exchangers, basic catalysts, and catalyst precursors. Pillared derivatives of the type discussed earlier for the clays have been synthesized by ion exchange with polyoxometallate anions but have lower thermal stability. Several authors have reported synthesis of layered double hydroxides pillared with the Vio028 ion by direct ion exchange or by techniques that involve preswelling the layer structure with an organic anion. For example, the terephthalate anion was used in the synthesis ofVio028 and Mo7 024 intercalated phases. 

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