Investigations of the Guerbet reaction to upgrade ethanol to n-butanol were carried out using molecular and metal catalysts integrated into the carbon nitride support poly(triazine)imide (PTI) which contains intralayer cavities to host catalytic sites. Initial studies with PTI-MCl (where M = Li, Fe, Co, Mn, or Zn) and base did not produce significant quantities of n-butanol. Several homogeneous metal complexes [(Cp*)IrCl2]2 (Cp* = C5Me5), [(Cp*)RhCl2]2, [(p-cymene)RuCl2]2 (p-cymene = 4-isopropyltoluene), and [(C6Me6)RuCl2]2 were sonicated with PTI-LiCl to produce composite materials which were characterized by UV-Vis spectroscopy and X-ray powder diffraction. PTI-(Cp*)Ir, a material formed by treatment of PTI-LiCl with [(Cp*)IrCl2]2 proved to be a viable catalyst for the Guerbet reaction. Using PTI-(Cp*)Ir and sodium hydroxide as the catalyst system at 150 °C, neat ethanol was upgraded to produce n-butanol in 13% yield and 59% selectivity. The PTI-(Cp*)Ir was found to have a metal loading of 27% iridium per cavity.

Utilizing transition metal incorporated poly(triazine)imide frameworks for ethanol upgrading to n-butanol

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