Hongling Li

Mesoporous silica-supported copper-catalysts for homocoupling reaction of terminal alkynes at room-temperature

Amine-functionalized mesoporous silica-supported copper catalysts SBA-15@amine–Cu and SBA-15@Oamine–Cu were prepared and proved to be efficient and reusable for homocoupling of terminal alkynes at room temperature with air as the oxidant. SBA-15@amine–Cu exhibited better recyclability than SBA-15@Oamine–Cu. The differences in the catalytic performances of the catalysts could be ascribed to catalyst structure and the interaction between copper and the supports. The as-prepared catalysts were systematically characterized by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), high resolution-transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and nitrogen physical adsorption. The analysis indicated that the mesoporous structure of the materials was retained during the immobilization process. XPS results suggested that the as-prepared catalysts were not obtained by a simple physical adsorption of CuCl on the supports. It is noted that, for aliphatic alkynes, the catalytic activity of SBA-15@amine–Cu is even higher than that of the homogeneous copper catalytic system and that of some previously reported heterogeneous systems.

Selective adsorption of silver ions from aqueous solution using polystyrene-supported trimercaptotriazine resin

Trimercaptotriazine-functionalized polystyrene chelating resin was prepared and employed for the adsorption of Ag(I) from aqueous solution. The adsorbent was characterized according to the following techniques: Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, elemental analysis, scanning electron microscopy and the Brunauer-Emmet-Teller method. The effects of initial Ag(I) concentration, contact time, solution pH and coexisting ions on the adsorption capacity of Ag(I) were systematically investigated. The maximum adsorption capacity of Ag(I) was up to 187.1 mg/g resin at pH 0.0 and room temperature. The kinetic experiments indicated that the adsorption rate of Ag(I) onto the chelating resin was quite fast in the first 60 min and reached adsorption equilibrium after 360 min. The adsorption process can be well described by the pseudo second-order kinetic model and the equilibrium adsorption isotherm was closely fitted by the Langmuir model. Moreover, the chelating resin could selectively adsorb more Ag(I) ions than other heavy metal ions including: Cu(I), Zn(II), Ni(II), Pb(II) and Cr(III) during competitive adsorption in the binary metal species systems, which indicated that it was a highly selective adsorbent of Ag(I) from aqueous solution.