FTIR spectroscopy of carbon dioxide adsorbed on sodium- and magnesium-exchanged ETS-10 molecular sieves

The adsorption of carbon dioxide on sodium- and magnesium-exchanged ETS-10 molecular sieves was investigated by FTIR spectroscopy. CO2 was found to adsorb reversibly onto the charge-balancing cations with formation of linear end-on adducts of the type M...OCO (with M = Na+ or Mg2+). Such adducts are characterised by intense nu(3) bands at 2353 and 2365 cm(-1), for CO2 interacting with Na+ and Mg2+, respectively. More interestingly, carbon dioxide was also found to form different carbonate-like species upon adsorption on the Na-ETS-10 (and, to a minor extent, also on Mg-ETS-10), which are the origin of the activity of ETS-10 in heterogeneous base-catalysed processes.