Fluoride-free hydrothermal synthesis of nanosized Sn-Beta zeolite via interzeolite transformation for Baeyer-Villiger oxidation

Abstract

Sn-containing Beta (Sn-Beta) zeolite is extensively applied in industrially-relevant reactions as a highly active and robust Lewis acid heterogeneous catalyst. Nonetheless, environmentally-unfriendly fluoride is generally required to the directly hydrothermal synthesis of Sn-Beta. In this work, an innovative strategy of interzeolite transformation with steam-assisted conversion is provided to directly synthesize Sn-Beta zeolite in the absence of fluoride. Silica source of FAU and steam-assisted conversion were two necessary factors for the successful synthesis of Sn-Beta zeolite. It was found that highly crystallized Sn-Beta zeolite with isolated framework Sn ions was hydrothermally synthesized via degradation of siliceous FAU zeolite and recrystallization of degraded silicate species. As far as we know, the crystal of Sn-Beta in this work was minimum in size among all present directly hydrothermal synthesized ones. More importantly, the Sn contents in Sn-Beta could achieve to 2.39 wt % (Si/Sn = 81), breaking through the Sn content restriction of conventional fluoride-mediated method. In addition, the hydrophobicity of this resultant Sn-Beta zeolite was slightly inferior to Sn-Beta-F obtained via traditional fluoride-assisted route. Whereas the smaller crystal size of this Sn-Beta gave rise to relatively good diffusion performance for organics, which made it reveal high activities in the Baeyer-Villiger oxidant of ketones in particular employing bulky tert-butyl hydroperoxide as the oxidant. The current strategy provides an alternative and environmentally-friendly method for the hydrothermal synthesis of Sn-Beta without the assistance of fluoride and alkali metal ions, which can guide further development in metallosilicates crystal engineering in terms of greenization.