Abstract
Environmental concerns determine the research paths aimed at seeking alternative sources for the production of chemicals that are currently supplied by the petroleum industry. As one of the alternatives, the biomass with the catalytic bioethanol dehydration is a valuable source of diethyl ether (DEE) and ethylene. The latter being important chemicals used either as solvent in organic synthesis/fuel additive or as petrochemical intermediate for polyethylene production. Zeolites play an important role in the fields of heterogeneous catalysis and separation processes. Despite of significant achievements made so far, the fundamental understandings of molecular adsorption and diffusion under the confinement of nanoporous materials is still a challenging question. The objective of this proposal is to apply different 3D coherent x-ray imaging and x-ray photon correlation spectrocopy methods for the characterisation of nanoporous zeolites in an environment reflecting realistic reaction conditions. The novelty of our project will consist in combining structural and kinetic sensitivities to probe the nanoscale spatial correlations between the catalytic centers/nanopores and the resulting catalytic activity. The outcome of this type of experiments will give the length scale (from atomic to nano) and the timescale necessary for the understanding of the zeolites dynamics under reaction conditions. (AU)
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