M A T T E R A T E X T R E M E S
S C I E N T I F I C H I G H L I G H T S
2 2 H I G H L I G H T S 2 0 2 1 I
This study clearly demonstrates that the more scalable and practical catalyst preparation method of impregnation of already shaped material results in a larger fraction of Zn
located in the binder rather than in the zeolite However, upon calcination, the Zn migrates to the exchange sites, thus forming the active sites for formation of aromatics.
Fig. 9: Comparison between experimental (coloured circles) and LCF (black solid lines) XANES spectra obtained for (a-c) as-prepared and (d,e) activated Zn-containing catalysts from the ZB series. For each analysed sample, the LCF residuals (light grey curves on the bottom of each plot) and scaled components are reported (B-1Zn: grey; B-10Zn: dark grey; hydr. Zn(II): light blue; Z-3IE act: dark red) together as pie charts illustrating the resulting Zn-speciation (fractions of each Zn-
species over the total amount of Zn present in the samples) with same colour code.
PRINCIPAL PUBLICATION AND AUTHORS
Finding the active species: The conversion of methanol to aromatics over Zn-ZSM-5/alumina shaped catalysts, I. Pinilla-Herrero (a,b), E. Borfecchia (b,c), T. Cordero-Lanzac (a), U.V. Mentzel (b), F. Joensen (b), K.A. Lomachenko (d), S. Bordiga (c), U. Olsbye (a), P. Beato (b), S. Svelle (a), J. Catal. 394, 416-428 (2021); https:/doi.org/10.1016/j.jcat.2020.10.024 (a) Center for Materials Science and Nanotechnology (SMN), Department of Chemistry, University of Oslo (Norway) (b) Haldor Topsøe, A/S Kgs. Lyngby (Denmark) (c) Department of Chemistry, INSTM reference center and NIS interdepartmental center, University of Turin (Italy) (d) ESRF
New insights in pressure-induced polymerisation: formation of columnar hydrofluorocarbons from polycyclic arene-perfluoroarene co-crystals
Molecular co-crystals have been studied at high pressure using single-crystal synchrotron X-ray
diffraction, infrared spectroscopy, and density functional theory. Structural information revealed that the parallel pre-alignment of aromatic and perfluoro-aromatic molecules, possessing inverse multipole moments, preserves highly ordered crystals prior to and through the pressure-induced polymerisation process. This leads the way to the tailored design of carbon-framework materials.
