Layered titanosilicate catalyst has five-coordinate titanium atoms

Abstract

A team of British and Chinese chemists has discovered a novel titanosilicate catalyst with properties analogous to those of aluminosilicate clays. material contains five-coordinate titanium atoms and has a unique noncentrosymmetric tetragonal layered structure. layered solid, Na 4 Ti 2 Si 8 O 22 ·4H 2 O, has been designated JDF-L1 [Jilin Davy Faraday-Layered solid number 1] after the groups that discovered it at Jilin University, China, and at the Davy Faraday Research Laboratory of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, London [ Nature , 381 , 401 (1996)]. The uniqueness of the structure is likely to be of interest to solid-state chemists and physicists, geochemists, materials and other applied scientists, including members of the catalysis community, suggests Sir John Meurig Thomas, who directs the London group. team includes research associates Mark A. Roberts and Gopinathan Sankar, and former research fellow Richard H. Jones, now a lecturer at Keele University, Staffordshire. JDF-Ll is...