Probing the Acid Strength of Brønsted Acidic Zeolites with Acetonitrile: Quantum Chemical Calculation of 1H, 15N, and 13C NMR Shift Parameters

Abstract

Calculations have been carried out of 1H, 15N, and 13C NMR chemical shift parameters, which are used to characterize the acid strength and accessibility of Bronsted acid sites in seven high-silica zeolites of structure types CHA, FAU, FER, MFI, MOR, MTW, and TON. The acid sites had previously been selected by a systematic minimization procedure, and an acetonitrile molecule inserted using a Monte Carlo method. The main interactions between acetonitrile and the zeolite are an N···H−O type hydrogen bond to the Bronsted proton and van der Waals' interactions with the framework. Calculations using GIAO (with B3LYP/TZV) were performed on optimized clusters, which included the acid site and sufficient atoms to represent the surrounding pore topology. The isotropic shielding values were obtained, as well as the principal components of the shielding tensors and the chemical shift parameters. Both the isotropic shifts of the acid proton, δiso(1H), and δiso(15N) correlate well with the hydroxy bond length, r(OH), a...