Silica-oxygen-alumina bonds

Pyrophyllite - If the kaolin structure is boimd through shared oxygens to a layer of silica rings on its alumina side, the pyrophyllite structure of Figure 9 results. Because both faces of a pyrophylHte platelet are composed of silica oxygens, interlaminar bonding is by relatively weak van der Waals forces. Pure pyrophylhte is therefore soft with talc-like slipperiness, because its laminae will slide past each other or separate fairly easily. 

Basset and his group have observed that propane and propene metathesis give similar Cn+i/Cn+2 ratios of cross-metathesis products on silica-supported tantalum-neopentylidene catalyst at 150°C. The olefin-metathesis activity of these Schrock-type supported complexes results from the presence of the silyloxy ligand (vide infra) - Organometallic complexes are bound to silica or alumina by reaction of soluble complexes and involve die formation of one or several bonds between the central metal and the oxygen atom of the oxide support. 

Other covalently bonded catalysts are those on inorganic supports such as silica, molecular sieves (zeolites), and alumina, the complexes being held either directly via the oxygen of surface hydroxy groups or via an intermediate functional group, again especially phosphino. 

The group 5-7 supported transition metal oxides (of vanadium, niobium, tantalum, chromium, molybdenum, tungsten, and rhenium) are characterized by terminal oxo bonds (M =0) and bridging oxygen atoms binding the supported oxide to the cation of the support (M -0-MSUpport). The TOF values for ODH of butane or ethane on supported vanadia were found to depend strongly on the specific oxide support, varying by a factor of ca. 50 (titania > ceria > zirconia > niobia > alumina > silica). 

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