L. Hu et al. / Catalysis Communications 43 (2014) 179–183
181
Table 1
x
Physicochemical properties of Cu –V-HMS samples.
Samples
Cu/V molar ratio in the starting gel
Cu/V molar ratio in the producta
S
BET (m2 g−1
)
Dpore (nm)
V
pore (cm3 g−1
)
V-HMS
0
0
1060
951
833
682
3.8
4.0
4.0
3.8
0.61
0.51
0.46
0.48
Cu0.45–V-HMS
Cu0.90–V-HMS
Cu1.35–V-HMS
0.45
0.90
1.35
0.44
0.82
1.00
a
Analyzed by ICP-AES.
a decrease in total pore volume after the addition of copper species [23].
With the increase of copper loading, the BET surface area decreases
between copper and vanadium species. With further increasing copper
content, the reduction peak at 450°C shifts to 330°C for Cu0.18–V-HMS,
revealing stronger interaction between copper and vanadium species.
In addition, Cu0.90–V-HMS exhibits two reduction peaks at 300 °C
and 340 °C, while these two peaks are well resolved and the peak at
340 °C shifts to 380 °C for Cu1.35–V-HMS. With increasing copper
content, the interaction between copper and vanadium species becomes
stronger, corresponding to the peak shifting from 340 °C to 380 °C. On
the basis of the above discussions, it can be concluded that a strong
interaction exists between copper and vanadium species. Due to this
strong interaction, the reduction of vanadium species becomes easier.
The TEM images of V-HMS and Cu0.90–V-HMS (Fig. S1) exhibit the
typical wormlike mesoporous structure. In addition, both samples
show no evident bulk copper or vanadium species on the HMS surface,
which reveals that the copper and vanadium species are well dispersed.
UV–vis DRS is a useful technique to study the coordination
environment and oxidation states of vanadium species. All the
samples show a band at 220 nm (Fig. 4) assigned to the silica
materials [19]. The peak at 250 nm in Cu0.90–HMS catalyst could be
2
−1
gradually from 1060 to 682 m
g
and the mesoporous volume
. Also, the pore size distribution
declines from 0.61 to 0.48 cm3
g
−1
curves derived from the desorption branch show a narrow peak
Fig. 2(B)) around 3.8–4.0 nm for all samples (Table 1). With the
(
increase of copper loading, although the peak position does not change
appreciably, the peak intensity decreases obviously. The changes in the
textural properties may be attributed to the partial blocking of
mesopores after the incorporation of high content metal species into
the HMS framework [24].
H –TPR curves are shown in Fig. 3. V-HMS exhibits a single reduction
2
peak at 516 °C, which is attributed to the reduction of dispersed
tetrahedral vanadium species [25]. However, the reduction peak at
5
16 °C disappears for the samples of Cu0.45–V-HMS, Cu0.90–V-HMS and
Cu1.35–V-HMS. The main peak at about 220 °C in Cu –V-HMS can be
x
assigned to the reduction of copper species [23]. With the increase of
copper content, the peak at 220 °C shifts towards lower temperature
region, indicating the facilitation of copper reduction. Dong et al. [26]
reported that irrespective of vanadium loading, increasing copper
loading always resulted in the peak shifting to lower temperature. The
δ+
related to the charge transfer of isolated mononuclear Cu species
[28]. In V-HMS, the band at 250 nm can be ascribed to the low-
energy charge transfer of tetrahedral oxygen ligand to central V5
ion in the framework [19,29] and the band in the region of
350–400 nm is associated with the charge transfer of polymerized
+
x
reduction peak at about 300 °C in Cu –V-HMS samples is assigned to
the reduction of dispersed CuO and V–O–Cu species [26], which may
explain the disappearance of the peak of vanadium species at 516 °C
for all Cu-containing samples.
VO
4
species dispersed on the surface [30]. However, Cu0.90–V-HMS
To further prove our speculation, we prepared Cu0.09–V-HMS,
Cu0.18–V-HMS and vanadium-free Cu0.90-HMS samples with the similar
only shows a weak band at 250 nm corresponding to the tetrahedral
5
+
δ+
V
species or isolated mononuclear Cu
existence of the copper species may result in elimination of polymerized
VO species, which is probably caused by the interaction between
species. Therefore, the
preparation method and investigated their reducibility by H
2
–TPR
(Fig. 3(b), (c), and (g)). Cu0.90–HMS shows two reduction peaks at
4
2
13°C and 232°C. The peaks at 213°C can be assigned to the reduction
copper and vanadium species.
of highly dispersed copper species with small particle size, while one
at 232 °C is attributed to the reduction of large CuO particles [27].
Cu0.09–V-HMS shows a new peak at 450 °C probably resulted from the
shift of the peak at 516 °C in V-HMS, implying the weak interaction
Fig. 5 shows the relationship between initial and equilibrium
concentrations of phenol and benzene on V-HMS, Cu0.90–V-HMS and
Cu0.90-HMS samples in the adsorption test. Phenol was reported to be
hardly adsorbed on any catalyst surface regardless of its hydrophilicity
[31]. The equilibrium concentration of phenol shown in Fig. 5(A) is
Fig. 3.
2
H –TPR profiles of (a) V-HMS, (b) Cu0.09–V-HMS, (c) Cu0.18–V-HMS,
(
d) Cu0.45–V-HMS, (e) Cu0.90–V-HMS, (f) Cu1.35–V-HMS, and (g) Cu0.90-HMS.
Fig. 4. UV–vis spectra of (a) V-HMS, (b) Cu0.90–V-HMS, and (c) Cu0.90-HMS.