SAPO-37 microporous catalysts: revealing the structural transformations during template removal

Abstract

We have studied the structural behavior of SAPO-37 during calcination using simultaneous in situ powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and mass spectroscopy (MS) in addition to ex situ thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). A spike in the unit cell volume corresponding to template removal (tracked using the occupancy of the crystallographic sites in the SAPO-37 cages) is revealed from the XRD data and is strongly correlated with the DSC curve. The occupancy of the different template molecules in the faujasite (FAU) and sodalite (SOD) cages is strongly related to the two mass loss steps observed in the TGA data. The templates act as a physical stabilizing agent, not allowing any substantial unit cell response to temperature changes until they are removed. The FAU cages and SOD cages have different thermal response to the combustion of each template. The FAU cages are mainly responsible for the unit cell volume expansion observed after the template combustion. This expansion seems to be related with residual coke from template combustion. We could differentiate between the thermal response of oxygen and T-atoms. The T–O–T angle between two double 6-rings and a neighboring T–O–T linkage shared by SOD and FAU had different response to the thermal events. We were able to monitor the changes in the positions of oxygen and T-atoms during the removal of TPA+ and TMA+. Large changes to the framework structure at the point of template removal may have a significant effect on the long-term stability of the material in its activated form.