Fabrication of Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Materials with Tunable Porosity for Catalytic Application.

Abstract

Novel layered organic-inorganic materials functionalized with amino groups have been synthesized by using a two-dimensional zeolitic precursor, IPC-1P, prepared by a top-down approach from zeolite UTL. The formation of porous materials containing silsesquioxane linkers covalently bonded to zeolite layers in the interlayer space was confirmed by a variety of characterization techniques (N2 sorption, XRD, TEM). The textural properties and catalytic behavior of functionalized hybrid materials synthesized by direct pillaring of IPC-1P or by grafting of (3-aminopropyl)silyl groups to the IPC-1P precursor preliminarily pillared with tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) were compared. The use of a mixture of aminosilsesquioxanes and TEOS for pillaring of IPC-1P led to the formation of functionalized materials, which are characterized by excellent textural properties (SBET =154-435 m2 g-1 , Vtotal =0.336-0.630 cm3 g-1 ) and provide a 100 % yield of target benzylidenemalononitrile in the Knoevenagel condensation of benzaldehyde and malononitrile.