Quantitative Determination of the Coordination Numbers of Al in Mesostructured Aluminophosphates by Al K-Edge XANES Spectroscopy

Introduction Owing to the great catalytic potential of zeoliteanalogous microstructured aluminophosphates (AlPO4-n), first introduced in 1982 by Wilson et al., numerous attempts have been made to prepare mesostructured aluminophosphates following the synthetic route given by researchers of Mobil Oil in 1992, which utilises supramolecular arrays of surfactants as structuredirecting templates under hydrothermal conditions. Lamellar mesostructured aluminophosphate materials have been prepared solvothermally using primary alkylamines, such as C12H25NH2. [3,4] Also, cationic surfactants (e.g. cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, CTABr) have been used to synthesise mesophases with hexagonal symmetry at room temperature.