A mesoporous crystalline niobium oxide with tunable pore sizes was synthesized via the sol-gel-based inverse micelle method. The material shows a surface area of 127 m2/g, which is the highest surface area reported so far for crystalline niobium oxide synthesized by soft template methods. The material also has a monomodal pore size distribution with an average pore diameter of 5.6 nm. A comprehensive characterization of niobium oxide was performed using powder X-ray diffraction, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller, thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, UV-vis, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The material acts as an environmentally friendly, solid acid catalyst toward hydration of alkynes under with excellent catalytic activity (99% conversion, 99% selectivity, and 4.39 h-1 TOF). Brønsted acid sites present in the catalyst were found to be responsible for the high catalytic activity. The catalyst was reusable up to five cycles without a significant loss of the activity.
Keywords: alkyne hydration; crystalline; heterogeneous catalysis; mesoporous; niobium oxide; solid acids.