Hydrophobicity Boosts Catalytic Activity: The Tailoring of Aluminosilicates with Trimethylsilyl Groups**

• DOI: 10.1002/cctc.202300449
• Publication Date: 2023-05-24T12:54:52Z
• Authors: Lucie Leonova; Zdenek Moravec; Petr Sazama; Jana Pastvova; Libor Kobera; Jiri Brus; Ales Styskalik
• Keywords: Aminolysis; Trimethylsilyl; Bentonite

Abstract Introducing organic groups into metal silicate catalysts and thus supposedly changing the surface hydrophobicity has been shown to enhance catalyst performance in various reactions. However, introduction does not unambiguously guarantee control. Therefore, a thorough characterization is necessary provide complete view of interaction between surface, reactants, products. Herein, an aluminosilicate with well‐dispersed Al atoms was prepared via non‐hydrolytic sol‐gel method. This material post‐synthetically modified trimethylsilyl groups; their number on controlled temperature‐vacuum pretreatment. In such way, materials similar porosity, structure, acid site strength quality were obtained. Notably, water sorption measurements showed that trimethylsilylated aluminosilicates adsorb 2.5–3 times less than parent (p/p 0 =0.3). The turn‐over‐frequency epoxide ring opening ethanol dehydration scaled up grafted surface. Particularly, heavily sample achieved three five higher turnover‐frequency styrene oxide aminolysis material. To best authors’ knowledge, it exhibited most active sites for present literature.