Philipp Zeigermann

Diffusion in hierarchical mesoporous materials: applicability and generalization of the fast-exchange diffusion model.

Transport properties of cyclohexane confined to a silica material with an ordered, bimodal pore structure have been studied by means of pulsed field gradient nuclear magnetic resonance. A particular organization of the well-defined pore structure, composed of a collection of spatially ordered, spherical mesopores interconnected via narrow worm-like pores, allowed for a quantitative analysis of the diffusion process in a medium with spatially ordered distribution of the fluid density for a broad range of the gas-liquid equilibria. The measured diffusion data were interpreted in terms of effective diffusivities, which were determined within a microscopic model considering long-range molecular trajectories constructed by assembling the alternating pieces of displacement in the two constituting pore spaces. It has further been found that for the system under study, in particular, and for mesoporous materials with multiple porosities, in general, this generalized model simplifies to the conventional fast-exchange model used in the literature. Thus, not only was justification of the applicability of the fast-exchange model to a diversity of mesoporous materials provided, but the diffusion parameters entering the fast-exchange model were also exactly defined. The equation resulting in this way was found to nicely reproduce the experimentally determined diffusivities, establishing a methodology for targeted fine-tuning of transport properties of fluids in hierarchical materials with multiple porosities.

The interplay between inter- and intra-molecular dynamics in a series of alkylcitrates

The inter- and intra-molecular dynamics in a series of glass-forming alkylcitrates is studied by a combination of Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy (BDS), Pulsed Field Gradient Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (PFG NMR), Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). Analyzing the temperature dependencies of specific IR absorption bands in terms of their spectral position and the corresponding oscillator strengths enables one to unravel the intramolecular dynamics of specific molecular moieties and to compare them with the (primarily dielectrically) determined intermolecular dynamics. With decreasing temperature, the IR band positions of carbonyls (part of the core units) and H-bonded moieties of citrates show a red shift with a kink at the calorimetric glass transition temperature (Tg) while other moieties, whose dynamics are decoupled from those of the core units, exhibit a blue shift with nominal changes at Tg. The oscillator strength of all units in citrates depicts stronger temperature dependencies above Tg and in some, the ester linkage and H-bonded units show a change of slope at a temperature where structural and faster secondary relaxations merge. By that, a wealth of novel information is obtained proving the fundamental importance of intramolecular mobility in the process of glass formation, beyond coarse-grained descriptions.

Diffusion NMR of Fluids Confined to Mesopores under High Pressures

Supercritical fluids are extensively used in various chemical applications including processes involving porous solids. The knowledge of their transport in bulk as well as under spatial confinements is critical for modeling and optimizing chemical reactions. In this contribution, we describe a high‐pressure cell designed for pulsed field gradient NMR studies of diffusion of supercritical solvents in mesoporous materials. Some preliminary results on diffusion properties of ethane in bulk phase and confined to pores of mesoporous silicon obtained in a broad range of pressures below and above the critical temperature are reported.

Improving mass-transfer in controlled pore glasses as supports for the platinum-catalyzed aromatics hydrogenation†

The liquid-phase hydrogenation of toluene and other alkyl substituted benzene derivatives with different critical diameters was investigated over Pt-catalysts supported on spherical controlled pore glasses (CPGs) as model supports at 373 K in the batch mode. The effect of mass-transfer within the catalyst pores was studied by varying the pore width (4, 10, and 80 nm) and average grain size (18–150 μm) of the Pt/CPG catalysts. For toluene hydrogenation, internal mass-transfer limitations were absent (effectiveness factor >90%) only for catalysts with particle sizes below 25 μm and pore widths ≤10 nm or with a pore width of 80 nm and particle sizes around 75 μm, respectively. Effective diffusion coefficients obtained from initial reaction rates via the Thiele concept, e.g., 2.8 × 10−10 m2 s−1 for toluene over the catalyst with 10 nm pore width, were an order of magnitude lower than when determined by PFG-NMR. This difference was explained in terms of transport resistances such as surface barriers affecting the diffusivity assessment via the Thiele concept, while PFG-NMR measures intraparticle diffusion only.