Kwang H. Lim, Fabien Jousse, Scott M. Auerbach and Clare P. Grey, ``Double Resonance NMR and Molecular Simulations of Hydrofluorocarbon Binding on Faujasite Zeolites NaX and NaY: The Importance of Hydrogen Bonding in Controlling Adsorption Geometries,'' J. Phys. Chem. B 105, 9918-9929 (2001).

Abstract

Double resonance NMR experiments have been used to study the binding of the asymmetric hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) CF3CFH2 (HFC-134a), CF3CF2H (HFC-125) and CF2HCFH2 (HFC-143) on zeolites NaX and NaY. By exploiting the very large differences in 19F chemical shifts for the -CF(3-x)Hx end groups of each molecule, individual 19F --> 23Na cross polarization (CP) build-up curves involving polarization transfer from different parts of the molecule have been obtained. CP efficiencies in the order CF3< 27Al and 1H --> 17O CP MAS NMR experiments are consistent with H-bonding interactions with the zeolite framework. Molecular dynamics and docking calculations for HFC-134 and 134a on model NaY and NaX zeolites revealed the importance of both H-bonding and Na-F interactions in determining the low-energy sorption sites. Stable binding sites for HFC-134a in NaY were found by docking to involve only CFH2-Na(SII) contacts, in qualitative agreement with the CP results. The simulations indicate that Na-binding to the groups with more H atoms is favored by the possibility of achieving shorter Na-F distances and maximizing the number of H-bonds with the framework. The higher sodium content zeolite containing both SII and SIII cations gives minimum energy binding sites involving multiple Na-F and H-bonding contacts. For HFC-134 (gauche conformer), the global energy minimum actually involves several H-bonds but no short Na-F contacts.

Prof SM Auerbach
16 October 2001