A large-cavity zeolite with wide pore windows and potential as an oil refining catalyst

Avelino Corma (), María J. Díaz-Cabañas, Joaquín Martínez-Triguero, Fernando Rey and Jordi Rius
Additional contact information
Avelino Corma: Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
María J. Díaz-Cabañas: Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
Joaquín Martínez-Triguero: Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
Fernando Rey: Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
Jordi Rius: Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (CSIC)

Nature, 2002, vol. 418, issue 6897, 514-517

Abstract: Abstract Crude oil is an important feedstock for the petrochemical industry and the dominant energy source driving the world economy, but known oil reserves will cover demand for no more than 50 years at the current rate of consumption1. This situation calls for more efficient strategies for converting crude oil into fuel and petrochemical products. At present, more than 40% of oil conversion is achieved using catalysts based on faujasite; this zeolite requires extensive post-synthesis treatment to produce an ultrastable form2,3, and has a large cavity accessible through four 0.74-nm-wide windows and thus limits the access of oil molecules to the catalytically active sites. The use of zeolites with better accessibility to their active sites should result in improved catalyst efficiency. To date, two zeolites with effective pore diameters exceeding that of faujasite have been reported4,5, but their one-dimensional pore topology excludes use in oil refining. Similarly, zeolites with large pores and a three-dimensional pore topology have been reported6,7,8, but in all these materials the pore openings are smaller than in faujasite. Here we report the synthesis of ITQ-21, a zeolite with a three-dimensional pore network containing 1.18-nm-wide cavities, each of which is accessible through six circular and 0.74-nm-wide windows. As expected for a zeolite with this structure, ITQ-21 exhibits high catalytic activity and selectivity for valuable products in preliminary oil refining tests.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature00924 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:418:y:2002:i:6897:d:10.1038_nature00924

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature00924

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().