Boron nitride: a support for highly active heteropolyacids in the methanol-to-DME reaction

 boronnitride

Josefine Schnee, Adrien Eggermont and Eric M Gaigneaux

Hexagonal BN appears as an excellent support for H3PW12O40 Keggin units (KU) as catalysts for the gas phase 100% selective methanol-to-DME reaction at 150°C. Only mildly interacting with the KU, BN preserves their strong acidity, and leads to catalysts outcompeting by a factor 10 the KU supported on the most commonly used TiO2. KU on BN perform even better than adequately activated pure bulk KU crystals which were the most efficient catalysts to date thanks to their pseudo-liquid behavior. This effect is due to the ability of BN to stabilize still small enough KU crystallites.

ACS Catalysis, 2017, 7, 4011-4017

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acscatal.7b00808