Modification of commercial Y zeolites by alkaline-treatment for improved performance in the isomerization of glucose to fructose

Isomerization of glucose to fructose is a key reaction step in the efficient production valuable renewable chemical intermediates from biomass. Zeolites have been widely used promote isomerization, but only limited structure-activity relationship has established and applied optimize reaction. In this work, commercial Y zeolites were modified by alkaline-treatment their physicochemical properties structures correlated order catalytic performance for isomerization. For H-Y, developed new mesoporous with larger pore, Si-O(H)-Al bonds extracted silica framework creating more tetrahedral extra-framework Lewis acidic aluminum. This increased isomerization selectivity towards than twelve times decreased significantly acetalization/ketalization side reactions compared pristine zeolite. contrast, Na-Y contained mainly micropores had less non-framework Al-species, resulting low conversion yield due substrate accessibility pores, although number acid sites was tenfold higher H-Y. The study demonstrates how can be designed comprise mesopores weak sites, which greatly improve fructose.