1. Thermal dehydrofluorination of GaPO-34 revealed by NMR crystallography
- Author
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Laurie E. Macfarlane, Richard I. Walton, Daniel M. Dawson, Sharon E. Ashbrook, Mahrez Amri, The Royal Society, EPSRC, University of St Andrews. EaSTCHEM, and University of St Andrews. School of Chemistry
- Subjects
Chabazite ,Materials science ,02 engineering and technology ,010402 general chemistry ,01 natural sciences ,law.invention ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,law ,Phase (matter) ,Pyridine ,QE ,Calcination ,QD ,Physical and Theoretical Chemistry ,DAS ,Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,QD Chemistry ,0104 chemical sciences ,Surfaces, Coatings and Films ,Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials ,Thermogravimetry ,Crystallography ,General Energy ,chemistry ,TA ,Pyridinium ,0210 nano-technology ,Powder diffraction - Abstract
SEA thanks the Royal Society and the Wolfson Foundation for a merit award. The UK 850 MHz solid-state NMR Facility used in this research was funded by EPSRC and BBSRC (contract reference PR140003), as well as the University of Warwick including via part funding through Birmingham Science City Advanced Materials Projects 1 and 2 supported by Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). We acknowledge support from the Collaborative Computational Project on NMR Crystallography CCP-NC funded by EPSRC (EP/M022501/1). Using a combination of solid-state NMR spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction (pXRD), thermogravimetry, and periodic density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we investigate the calcination of the chabazite-type gallophosphate, GaPO-34, prepared with either 1-methylimidazole (mim) or pyridine (py) as the structure-directing agent (SDA) and fluoride as the charge-balancing anion. We demonstrate that, prior to SDA combustion, there is an unusual low-temperature dehydrofluorination step at ∼330 °C for the mim material, but not for the py form. The DFT-derived structure for the dehydrofluorinated intermediate contains pentacoordinate Ga species with Ga–N bonds of 2.04 Å to the mim nitrogen atom, in addition to four Ga–O bonds to neighboring PO4 tetrahedra. This observation is consistent with 71Ga NMR spectroscopy, which shows that one-third of the Ga is pentacoordinate with a large quadrupolar coupling constant of ∼11 MHz. Powder X-ray diffraction measured in situ on heating shows the transient appearance of a distinct crystalline phase between 325 and 425 °C before the characteristic chabazite structure is seen, which is consistent with dehydrofluorination prior to loss of the organic SDA. No such dehydrofluorinated intermediate structure is observed for the py form of GaPO-34, which is ascribed to the lower pKa of pyridinium relative to 1-methylimidazolium. Postprint Postprint
- Published
- 2021