The chemical industry today requires the processes of complex organic compounds, the production of which is expensive, since it is based on traditional cross-combination reactions (the most important method of creating carbon ties), and leads to the formation of a large amount of waste. An alternative and promising approach is to transition to reactions where water acts as a by-product.
"The idea of our study is to use a special type of catalyst in which the active component, palladium is in the form of isolated monoatomic centers enclosed inside nanoporous crystalline materials - zeolites.
It turns out that the reaction proceeds inside the pores, certain forms and size, and the potential reaction products are forced to "adapt" to these parameters. The idea seemingly simple, but before no one managed to realize it, "said one of the authors of the study, Head of the International Nanodiagnostic Laboratory of the Southern Federal University, Aram Bugaev.
Using the example of the binding reaction of toluene, scientists found out that the distribution of products is significantly changed in the introduction of active palladium centers in zeolites with different size and form of pores. The accurate structure of active palladium centers was established on the basis of synchrotron measurements of the X-ray absorption spectra and their analysis by copyright, based on machine learning algorithms.
"This is an excellent example of how advanced methods of chemical synthesis in combination with diagnostics on megasaine plants and modern supercomputer technologies allow you to achieve world-class breakthrough results.
Our study is dedicated not to a new heterogeneous catalyst, it offers a revolutionary concept for managing reaction products for practical application in industry, "commented on the results of the study Director of the International Research Institute of Intellectual Materials South Africa, head of the Russian-Belgian project, Professor Alexander Soldatov.
The new material, catalyst, makes it possible to produce important structural elements of organic synthesis - biarlines, widely used in modern thin chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The growing demand for biarlines in the polymer industry is due to their greater stability and security for humans and the environment. The introduction of the proposed material into the production of Biarlov will significantly reduce the cost of this process and expand their scope. The study was carried out in the framework of the joint Russian-Belgian project and was published in the Nature Catalysis magazine.
Source: Naked Science