Hydrothermally modified nanosheet ZSM-5 with MnOx nanoparticles and its high MTP performance

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Hydrothermally modified nanosheet ZSM-5 zeolite by directly using MnO x nanoparticles was carried out and this substantially offered a high performance catalyst for methanol to propylene (MTP) reaction. The properties of as synthesized ZSM-5 nanosheets with different MnO x amounts (NS-x) were compared with ZSM-5 nanosheets modified by impregnation method (IM-0.5) and physically mixed method (PM-0.5), respectively. The initial state of MnO x nanoparticles was close to Mn 2 O 3 with 20 nm in size. XRD, H 2 -TPR and XAFS results confirmed under high temperature hydrothermal condition, the Mn 2 O 3 nanoparticles disaggregated into Mn 2 O 3 clusters and entered the framework defects of nanosheet zeolite with high dispersion. Infrared spectra of hydroxyl groups (OH-IR) showed that the Mn 2 O 3 clusters were bonded with silanol defects both on the surface and inside zeolite, which substantially increased the stability of Mn 2 O 3 clusters and healed the framework defects. In contrast, the Mn species in the impregnated sample was close to the co-existence of Mn 2+ ions and MnO 2 nanoparticles with 2–3 nm, no interaction between Mn species and Si–OH group was determined. Notably, the typical sample (NS-0.5) with MnO x cluster modification performed much higher propylene selectivity and catalytic stability (~52%, 240 h, WHSV = 3 h −1 ), while the conventional IM-0.5 and PM-0.5 showed poor propylene selectivity (48%, 46%) and catalytic stability (166 h, 133 h) in MTP reaction. The excellent result should be attributed to the subtle control of external strong acid and the less structural defects, due to specific existence of bonded Mn 2 O 3 clusters. • Novel ZSM-5 nanosheet Mn modification method by disaggregating the Mn 2 O 3 nanoparticles under hydrothermal condition. • The Mn 2 O 3 clusters are bonded with hydroxyl groups on surface of nanosheet, leading to enhancing structure stability. • The bonded MnO x species decreases surface strong acidity of ZSM-5 nanosheet, which promotes propylene selectivity to 52%. • The interaction between MnO x species and ZSM-5 nanosheet heals framework defects and also suppresses MnO x leaching.