Selective reduction of supported CuO to Cu2O was realized using the strategy of vapor-induced reduction, in which HCHO/H2O vapor diffuses into the pores of the support and interacts with predispersed CuO. This new strategy allows the fabrication of supported cuprous sites at much lower temperatures within a short time, avoids the formation of Cu(0) with a Cu(I) yield of nearly 100%, and results in materials with good adsorption performance, which is impossible to achieve by conventional methods.

Much attention has been paid to metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) due to their large surface areas, tunable functionality, and diverse structure. Nevertheless, most reported MOFs show poor hydrothermal stability, which seriously hinders their applications. Here a strategy is adopted to tailor the properties of MOFs by means of incorporating carboxyl-functionalized natural clay attapulgite (ATP) into HKUST-1, a well-known MOF. A new type of hybrid material was thus fabricated from the hybridization of HKUST-1 and ATP. Our results indicated that the hydrothermal stability of the MOFs as well as the catalytic performance was apparently improved. The frameworks of HKUST-1 were severely destroyed after hydrothermal treatment (hot water vapor, 60 °C), while that of the hybrid materials was maintained. For the hybrid materials containing 8.4 wt % of ATP, the surface area reached 1302 m(2)·g(-1) and was even higher than that of pristine HKUST-1 (1245 m(2)·g(-1)). In the ring-opening of styrene oxide, the conversion reached 98.9% at only 20 min under catalysis from the hybrid material, which was obviously higher than that over pristine HKUST-1 (80.9%). Moreover, the hybrid materials showed excellent reusability and the catalytic activity was recoverable without loss after six cycles. Our materials provide promising candidates for heterogeneous catalysis owing to the good catalytic activity and reusability.

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