PhD fellow in "Understanding active sites of zeolite catalysts"

Project supervisor: Mariya Shamzhy

Project summary:

Heterogeneous single-site catalysts are the latest generation materials enabling to maximize the profit and minimize the waste-related issues during production of important chemicals. Although zeolites have been the key industrial catalysts for several decades, development of their single-site representatives as well as analytical techniques for detailed characterization of their active sites are at the very beginning of their inception. Therefore, screening, optimization and implementation of ex situ and in situ methods allowing to distinguish and comprehensively describe the potential active centers of different confinement and local geometry are in great demand. This is what we would like to explore further together with you, the successful applicant.

This work will focus on establishing diagnostic spectroscopic features of metal centers located in isolated or paired configurations in specific T-sites of a zeolite framework within the pores/cages of defined size. For that, a combination of solid state NMR and FTIR spectroscopies of adsorbed probe molecules will be complemented by structure refinement against diffraction data.