Elaboration of nickel-impregnated over hexagonal mesoporous materials and their catalytic application

Hexagonal mesoporous silicas with different nickel contents have been synthesized and characterized by several techniques such as N2 physical adsorption, elemental analysis, XRD, TEM and temperature programmed reduction (TPR). In fact, the nickel-impregnated over hexagonal mesoporous silicas showed both high activity and high selectivity for Friedel-Crafts alkylations of benzene with benzyl chloride. The kinetics of the reaction over these catalysts have been investigated and the reaction has been extended to other substrates like toluene, p-xylene, anisole, naphthalene and methylnaphthalene.