Lewis acid sites weak acidity

The catalyst acid sites are both Bronsted and Lewis type. The catalyst can have either strong or weak Bronsted sites or, strong i)i weak Lewis sites. A Bronsted-type acid is a substance capable of donating a proton. Hydrochloric and sulfuric acids are typical Bronsted acids. A Lewis-type acid is a substance that accepts a pair of electrons. Lewis acids may not have hydrogen in them but they are still acids. Aluminum chloride is the classic example of a Lewis acid. Dissolved in water, it will react with hydroxyl, causing a drop in solution pH. 

Figures 2.a-c show the pyridine adsorption results. Bronsted acidity is manifested by the bands at 1440-1445,1630-1640 and 1530-1550 cm . Bands at 1600-1630 cm are assigned to pyridine bonded to Lewis acid sites. Certain bands such as the 1440-1460 and 1480-1490 cm can be due to hydrogen-bonded, protonated or Lewis-coordinated pyridine species. Under continuous nitrogen purging, spectra labeled as "A" in Figures 2a-c represent saturation of the surface at room temperature (90 25 unol pyridine/g found in all three tungsta catalysts) and "F" show the baseline due to the dry catalyst. We cannot entirely rule out the possibility of some extent of weakly bound pyridine at room temperature. Nevertheless, the pyridine DRIFTS experiments show the presence of Brpnsted acidity, which is expected to be the result of water of reduction that did not desorb upon purging at the reduction temperature. It is noted that, regardless of the presence of Pt, the intensity of the DRIFTS signals due to pyridine are...

The intense absorption band at v (CO) 2154 cm" that appears at high CO pressure can be attributed to the hydrogen-bonded complex of CO with silanol OH-groups. Its appearance corresponds to a slight shift to lower frequencies of the absorption band at v (OH) 3742 cm corresponding to the stretching of Si-OH groups. The absorption band at v (CO) 2136 cm can be ascribed to physical-adsorbed CO over sepiolite. From these results we can conclude that on this particular kind of silica no acid sites are present, whereas sepiolite shows both weak and medium Lewis acid sites. 

Infrared spectra of pyridine adsorbed on dehydrated TS-1 and Ti-MCM-41 of comparable Ti content indicated the presence of only Lewis acid sites (Fig. 13). The infrared absorptions at 1595 and 1445 cm-1 are attributed to hydrogen-bonded pyridine (Si/Ti-OH—pyridine) and those at 1580 and 1485 cm-1 to pyridine bonded to weak Lewis acid sites (Fig. 12). Brpnsted sites, if present,... 

Acid catalysis by titanium silicate molecular sieves another area characterized by recent major progress. Whereas only two categories of acid-catalyzed reactions (the Beckmann rearrangement and MTBE synthesis) were included in the review by Notari in 1996 (33), the list has grown significantly since then. In view of the presence of weak Lewis acid sites on the surfaces of these catalysts, they can be used for reactions that require such weak acidity. 

Basic molecules such as pyridine and NH3 have been the popular choice as the basic probe molecules since they are stable and one can differentiate and quantify the Bronsted and Lewis sites. Their main drawback is that they are very strong bases and hence adsorb nonspecifically even on the weakest acid sites. Therefore, weaker bases such as CO, NO, and acetonitrile have been used as probe molecules for solid acid catalysts. Adsorption of CO at low temperatures (77 K) is commonly used because CO is a weak base, has a small molecular size, a very intense vc=0 band that is quite sensitive to perturbations, is unreactive at low temperature, and interacts specifically with hydroxyl groups and metal cationic Lewis acid sites.26... 

The mineral surface may be considered as a solid source of Lewis and/or BrfSnsted acidity and the reactive sites S as localized acidic or basic functional groups. Reactions involving such sites may be understood in terms of Lewis acid/base or BrfSnsted acid/base interactions ( 1, 5, 6, 8, 38). As the acidity of the reactive sites increases, increasingly weak bases are neutralized and reactive surface complexes (A S) may be formed. The term "acidity" is often used in the broad sense of the word, including both BrjSnsted and... 

Oki and his co-workers (177) also found that these halogenated compounds (107) exhibited enormous differences in reactivity when they were treated with Lewis acids. The sc form undergoes a Friedel-Crafts type cyclization in the presence of titanium tetrachloride, which is a weak Lewis acid, whereas the ap form survives these conditions. The latter reacts in the presence of the stronger Lewis acid antimony pentachloride. This difference is apparently caused by a chloro group in proximity to the site where a cationic center develops during the reaction (Scheme 12). 

Lewis bound form with a strong band at 1440 cm together with a weak 1490cm band. This implies that the Bronsted acidity is associated with the strongly bound water and as this water is removed the pyridine becomes coordinated to a Lewis bound site either nearby or at the undercoordinated A1 site produced by the removal of surface bound water. This transformation of Bronsted to Lewis acid centres is well established in catalyst chemistry as the sample... 

It is known that the activation temperature can influence the acid strength distribution. For example, measurements of the differential heats of ammonia adsorbed at 150°C for a HY zeolite have led to the conclusion that stronger acid sites, in the 150-180 kJ/mol range, are formed upon increasing the activation temperature from 300 to 650°C. Dehydroxylation at high temperature resulted in the formation of strong Lewis acid sites and the disappearance of intermediate and weak Brpnsted sites [62]. 

The acidic/basic properties of zeolites can be changed by introdnction of B, In, Ga elements into the crystal framework. For example, a coincorporation of alnminnm and boron in the zeolite lattice has revealed weak acidity for boron-associated sites [246] in boron-snbstitnted ZSM5 and ZSMll zeolites. Ammonia adsorption microcalorimetry gave initial heats of adsorption of abont 65 kJ/mol for H-B-ZSMll and showed that B-substituted pentasils have only very weak acidity [247]. Calcination at 800°C increased the heats of NH3 adsorption to about 170 kJ/mol by creation of strong Lewis acid sites as it can be seen in Figure 13.13. The lack of strong Brpnsted acid sites in H-B-ZSMll was confirmed by poor catalytic activity in methanol conversion and in toluene alkylation with methanol. 

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