IMDEA Energía researcher together with Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM-CISC) have developed a new nanoporous material based in calcium
February 8, 2013
During the last years a new kind of crystalline porous materials named Meta-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) have suffered a great development. These materials have shown to possess different important functionalities like gas storage, catalytic and optical properties. Usually, transition metals, as well as rare-earths elements, are used to synthesize MOF materials; however, in spite of the similarities between rare earth and alkaline earth complexes, the use of the latter to build MOFs has been much less studied. Thanks to the experience in this field of the ICMM-CSIC and IMDEA Energía researchers, a new coordination polymer type MOF based on calcium has been developed that presents very interesting catalytic properties as heterogeneous catalyst under mild conditions. The catalytic test performed in styrene hydrogenation to ethyl benzene shows a yield of 100% after 2 hours at 373 K. Calcium is one of the most abundant elements in the earth’s crust, being this new system a cheaper and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional heterogeneous hydrogenation catalyst.
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