Well-Dispersed H3PW12O40/H4SiW12O40 Nanoparticles on Mesoporous Polymer for Highly Efficient Acid-Catalyzed Reactions

With the depletion of fossil fuels, development of renewable energy has attracted wide attention in recent years. The well-known polyoxometalates (POMs) of H 3 PW 12 O 40 (denoted as PW 12 ) and H 4 SiW 12 O 40 (denoted as SiW 12 ) are effective catalysts for acid-catalyzed reactions. Nevertheless, industrial application of PW 12 and SiW 12 is largely restricted by the agglomeration, separation, leaching and recycling issues. Moreover, the PW 12 and SiW 12 tend to deactivate strong proton sites due to the small surface area of 10 m 2 ·g –1 . To overcome these problems, the PW 12 and SiW 12 have been fabricated onto a mesoporous polymer of PDVB-VBC (compound 1 ) with a large surface area via tris(2-aminoethyl)amine (TAEA), resulting in the formation of new heterogeneous catalysts of PDVB-VBC-TAEA-PW 12 (compound 3 ) and PDVB-VBC-TAEA-SiW 12 (compound 4 ). Both compounds 3 and 4 possess mesoporous structures with high surface area of 121 m 2 ·g –1 and 131 m 2 ·g –1, respectively. And they have shown highly efficient and selective dehydration of fructose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as well as esterification of lauric acid (LA) to methyl laurate. Moreover, the catalysts can be recycled for at least five times with no obvious decrease of reactivity. Therefore, such catalysts have great potential for further application from a chemical engineering point of view.