Nanoreactors pore confinement effect

In this chapter, we summarize the recent advances in the development of nanaoreactors based on porous solid materials for chemical reactions, including the general methods for the fabrication of typical porous materials, (mesoporous silicas (MSs), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and the MOFs), the assembly of the molecular catalysts in the cavities and pores of the porous materials, the chemical reactions in the porous-material-based nanoreactors, and some important issues concerning the porous-material-based nanoreactor, such as the pore confinement effect, the isolation effect, and the cooperative activation effect We close this chapter with an outlook of the future development of the nanoreactors. 

Through covalent and noncovalent bonding methods, different kinds of molecular catalysts could be incorporated into MSs and MOFs. These porous materials with the incorporated molecular catalyst could catalyze various kinds of chemical reactions. A review of all the related works is impossible and not necessary in this chapter. We only review some representative examples for demonstrating the unique properties of the nanoreactor for catalytic reactions, including the pore confinement effect, the enhanced cooperative activation effect, and the isolation effect, as well as the microenvironment and the porous structure engineering of the nanoreactor and the catalytic nanoreactor engineering. 

The molecular size pore system of zeolites in which the catalytic reactions occur. Therefore, zeolite catalysts can be considered as a succession of nano or molecular reactors (their channels, cages or channel intersections). The consequence is that the rate, selectivity and stability of all zeolite catalysed reactions are affected by the shape and size of their nanoreactors and of their apertures. This effect has two main origins spatial constraints on the diffusion of reactant/ product molecules or on the formation of intermediates or transition states (shape selective catalysis14,51), reactant confinement with a positive effect on the rate of the reactions, especially of the bimolecular ones.16 x ... 

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