Evaluation of the catalytic activity of Zn-MOF-74 for the alcoholysis of cyclohexene oxide
J. Gabriel Flores, Juan L. Obeso, V. Martínez-Jiménez, Nancy Martín-Guaregua, Alejandro Islas‐Jácome, Eduardo González‐Zamora, Héctor Serrano-Espejel, Britney Mondragón-Rodríguez, Carolina Leyva, Dora Alicia Solís-Casados, Ilich A. Ibarra, Ricardo A. Peralta, Julia Aguilar‐Pliego, J.A. de los Reyes
Abstract
In the present work, nanocrystalline Zn-MOF-74 is shown to be a heterogeneous catalyst for the acid-catalyzed ring-opening alcoholysis of cyclohexene oxide. The results corroborated that accessible open metal sites within the material are critical conditions (Zn(ii) Lewis acid sites) for this reaction. Zn-MOF-74 was tested at three different temperatures (30, 40, and 50 °C) for the alcoholysis reaction. Furthermore, the cyclohexene oxide conversion was 94% in less than two days. A comparison of the catalytic activity with different crystal sizes of Zn-MOF-74 and the homogenous phase, zinc acetate, was conducted. Zn-MOF-74 exhibited excellent catalytic cyclability for three cycles without losing its activity. The material showed chemical stability by retaining its crystalline structure after the reaction and cyclability process.