Structural elucidation of ethylene in H-ZSM-5 zeolites

The adsorption structure of substrates is crucial to the reaction pathways over heterogeneous catalysts. Recently, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of ethylene adsorption in Brønsted acidic H-ZSM-5 zeolites with a combination of neutron powder diffraction (NPD) and inelastic neutron scattering (INS). We found that depending on Brønsted acid sites (BASs) distribution, ethylene forms clusters with different configurations that determine the final catalytic products. However, due to the limited beamtime, in our previous neutron experiments, the loading amount of ethylene in H-ZSM-5 zeolites was not consistent. In this study, we would like to perform additional NPD experiments to determine the precise structure of ethylene clusters in H-ZSM-5 at various loadings. In this way, the relationship between BAS distribution, ethylene structure and related catalytic performance will be revealed.