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APCATA-13877; No. of Pages8
ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Boltz et al. / Applied Catalysis A: General xxx (2012) xxx–xxx
3
Table 1
ortho- and para-chloronitrobenzene, as a priori expected for the
nitro electron attracting group.
Brønsted acidity of the solid acids used in the chlorination process.
Solid acids
Si/Al
mmol H+/g
It seems that the zeolite pore size acts as a limiting factor for this
˚
reaction. Whilst no reaction occurred over H-FER zeolite (∼4 A pore
H-MOR
H-FER
H-EMT
H-BETA
H-ZSM-5 (zeolyst)
H-Y (Aldrich)
H-Y (UOP)
H-USY
Silica–alumina
H3PW12O40
Cs2PW12O40
SAC-13
5
10.5
6.5
13.6
15
2.2
5.0
2.8
3.6
–
1.90
2.26
2.38
1.07
1.04
5.34
2.20
3.90
3.68
0.91
0.32
1.00
1.87
aperture), nitrobenzene reacted with TCCA over medium pore H-
˚
ZSM-5 zeolite, which possesses a rather narrow pore size of 5.5 A,
affording 21% conversion. In contrast, 39% of nitrobenzene was con-
˚
verted over H-USY (pore size of 7.4 A). This tends to support an
effect of higher accessibility of those large organic molecules to the
catalytic sites in H-USY zeolite [21].
On the other hand, the chlorination reaction appears to be
positively influenced by the channel architecture of a zeolite
framework. Indeed, the SAC-13 catalyst (Nafion-H supported over
MCM-41), being a polymer-grafted on mesoporous silica, only led
to a 5% nitrobenzene conversion (Fig. 4). Likewise, gallium-doped
mesoporous silica (Ga-SBA-15) [22] also led to poor catalytic per-
formance (conversion of 7%) with respect to zeolites.
Following the same trend, the selectivity toward monochlo-
rination is also governed by the zeolite porosity. In parallel, the
beneficial effect of microporosity has been further evidenced
–
–
–
Ga-SBA-15
presents the number of Brønsted acid sites titrated by H/D exchange
for all solid acids used for the chlorination reaction.
The solid acid catalyst (0.44 mmol H+), trichloroisocyanuric acid
(0.15 mmol) and silica matrix (17 mmol, 1 g) were blended closely
by grinding. The mixture was then transferred into the cylindri-
cal reactor and the reactor was fixed to the set-up. The catalytic
bed was first dried under dry N2 flow at 150 ◦C for 30 min to des-
orb the water present in the void volume of the zeolite. Then,
nitrobenzene was supplied in its gaseous state by sweeping a dry
N2 flow through a stripping U-shaped reactor containing liquid
nitrobenzene (Fig. 2). Hence, this dry nitrogen flow saturated with
nitrobenzene’s vapor pressure was allowed to pass through the cat-
alytic bed during 5 h. The products were trapped at −196 ◦C and
recovered downstream to the reactor with toluene (4 mL). They
were analyzed by gas chromatography (HP 5890 Series II) equipped
with a capillary column (PONA, 50 m). Retention times were com-
pared with standards and used to characterizethe different reaction
products. The degree of conversion and the selectivity toward
the different products were calculated by taking into account the
response factor of the substrate (nitrobenzene) and those from the
products (mono-, di- and tri-chlorinated aromatics) through the
use of an external standard (styrene).
with the use of strongly acidic polyoxometalate H3PW12O40
.
Whereas, this non porous solid acid led to an appreciable degree
of nitrobenzene conversion (14%), in contrast the selectivity dras-
tically diminished with respect to zeolites in favor of dichlorination
products. However, Cs2HPW12O40 that exhibits a higher SSA value
(123 m2/g) and porosity with respect to its protonic counterpart
(5 m2/g) led to 2.6 fold increase in activity. The same behavior was
observed with amorphous silica–alumina, which converted only
5% of nitrobenzene probably due to the absence of zeolite’s highly
organized pore architecture.
In addition, a non-conventional acid catalyst, sulfated tin dioxide,
2−
sively Lewis acid sites and almost no porosity, was not a good
candidate at all, since no activity could be observed.
Besides, a rather surprising difference in reactivity between H-Y
and H-USY zeolites was observed (Fig. 3). H-USY zeolite is usu-
ally obtained by dealumination via a high temperature steaming
of pristine H-Y zeolite [23]. The dealumination process consists of
removing aluminum atoms from the zeolite framework and thus
to create new extra-framework aluminum species (EFAl) present
either as amorphous species (pseudo Al2O3) [24] or aluminum
species exhibiting exalted Lewis acidity (AlOOH, AlO+ species, etc.)
[25]. This phenomenon is beneficial for the chlorination process
since the conversion of nitrobenzene was drastically improved to
39% with H-USY compared to HY zeolite (16%).
To summarize these preliminary tests, one can observe that the
optimal catalyst for performing the chlorination of nitrobenzene
remains the H-USY zeolite. Indeed, the faujasite structure allows
catalyzing the chlorination of nitrobenzene by combining a high
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Methodology
In preliminary experiments, we initially performed the reaction
between TCCA and nitrobenzene by changing only one parame-
ter between each experiment. Firstly, we performed a screening of
the different solid acid catalysts (working under iso-Brønsted site
conditions). The effects of pore topologies and sizes along with the
quantity of Brønsted acid sites were investigated among the differ-
ent solid acids. Furthermore, we also decided to refine the number
of catalysts tested to find adapted reaction conditions by analyzing
the effect of temperature on the performance of the more promis-
ing catalyst. In parallel, the influence of Lewis acidity (EFAl) has
been evaluated for chosen “optimal” catalyst.
3.3. Influence of reaction temperature
Fig. 5 shows the results of the chlorination reaction at different
reaction temperatures. As ‘a priori’ expected, a raise in the temper-
ature led to higher nitrobenzene conversion, but at the expense
of the selectivity in monochlorinated products. The decrease in
selectivity is due to the formation of di- and tri-chlorinated prod-
ucts. For instance, the selectivity toward monochlorination was
diminished to 63% at 200 ◦C. Selectivities in di-chlorinated and tri-
chlorinated products were 32% and 5%, respectively. Among the
products of di-chlorination, 1,4-dichloro,2-nitrobenzene was formed
as major isomer (71%) whilst 1,2-dichloro,4-nitrobenzene repre-
sented nearly 28% selectivity among the dichlorinated products.
It is therefore worthy to mention that the second chlorination
Finally, the chlorination process was further optimized by mod-
ifying different reaction parameters, as quantities of TCCA, the
weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) while varying the catalyst
3.2. Behavior of the different solid acid catalysts
Fig. 3 shows the degree of nitrobenzene conversion and the
selectivity to mono-chloronitrobenzenes among the different cat-
alysts. It is noteworthy that the meta-chloronitrobenzene was
always found as prominent isomer, i.e.; >90% with respect to the