Base catalysis on microporous and mesoporous materials: recent progress and perspectives

During the past decade, new classes of porous solid bases such as organic b ases grafted onto the walls of ordered mesoporous materials and nitrided ze olites have been studied as catalysts in a wide variety of base-catalyzed r eactions. Important examples are the mercaptane oxidation in petroleum refi ning, well known as sweetening of gasoline and kerosene, carbon-carbon bond forming reactions in fine chemistry such as aldol additions and condensati ons, and (trans-) esterification reactions interesting for food, pharmaceut ical and cosmetic industries. The present work gives a survey on these new solid bases, their applications in heterogeneous catalysis and on new spect roscopic techniques allowing a more detailed investigation of base sites an d adsorbates on working catalysts. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All right s reserved.