Abstract
Hydroxyl groups of MCM-41 dehydroxylated under vacuum at 500 °C react with tetraneopentyl zirconium, leading to the evolution of neopentane and the formation of organometallic species with the mean formula (SiO)
2ZrNp
2 which were fully characterized by physicochemical methods such as solid-state NMR, infrared spectroscopy, quantification of evolved gases and microanalysis. Decomposition of the resulting materials under vacuum, oxygen, water and hydrogen has been studied. The acid properties of the Zr-MCM-41 solids obtained by this way compare well to those of Zr-MCM-41 materials obtained by direct synthesis.