INMA researchers are moving towards the production of clean energy by obtaining new catalysts
Álvaro Mayoral, a researcher at the Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón (INMA), a joint centre of the CSIC and the University of Zaragoza, together with South Korean scientists, have managed to synthesise and characterise two new catalysts (zeolites), capable of combating climate change, producing energy in a cleaner and more efficient way, reducing carbon emissions and facilitating possible recycling processes. The innovative research work, entitled “Synthesis of thermally stable SBT and SBS/SBT intergrowth zeolite”, has been published in the prestigious journal Science.
The field of work developed by Mayoral is included in the Horizon Europe programme, which aims to boost the competitiveness and growth of the European Union in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations. These goals (SDGs) aim to ensure the sustainability of the planet and humanity. Catalysts play a key role in this area, as they help the development of new environmentally friendly chemical processes, facilitating chemical reactions, lowering reaction temperatures, allowing the use of non-polluting solvents and reducing the amount of waste generated. Zeolites are a type of inorganic catalysts with a porous, ordered structure, generally composed of silicon, aluminium and oxygen, which are widely used in refining, petrochemical, pharmaceutical and plastics industries, among others.
In the recent paper published in Science (“Synthesis of thermally stable SBT and SBS/SBT intergrowth zeolites”), Álvaro Mayoral, from the Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón (INMA), CSIC-University of Zaragoza, together with South Korean groups from the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) and the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRIT), have synthesised and characterised the SBT and SBS/SBT intergrowth zeolites; have synthesised and characterised two new zeolitic materials (PST-2 and PST-32) whose structures were initially proposed hypothetically in 1998, but were never obtained in a stable way. These materials have been obtained in a stable way presenting a high structural complexity, characterised at the atomic level, which confers them great properties in industrial applications for the catalytic treatment of oil in the production of diesel. Moreover, thanks to their large pore size, these zeolites show potential capabilities for plastics recycling.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6550/104/tab-article-info.
Photo 1: Álvaro Mayoral
Photo 2: Materiales
08/07/2021
