Determination of acid sites in porous aluminosilicate solid catalysts for aqueous phase reactions using potentiometric titration method

[Display omitted] •Acid–base titration of zeolites.•Determination of acid groups in zeolite structures.•ICP-OES study on the composition of pristine and titrated zeolites.•FTIR pyridine, NMR and XRD characterization of pristine and titrated zeolites. A potentiometric acid–base titration method was developed to characterize the acid–base properties of H-Beta-25, H-Beta-300, H-Ferrierite-20 and Si-MCM-48 zeolites in aqueous solutions. The method is based on linearization of the titration curve. The zeolite powders were dispersed in a sodium nitrate solution which was then titrated with a standard solution of sodium hydroxide. Various acid sites were found in the studied zeolites, and both the protonation constants and the concentrations of these acid sites were determined. The chemical composition (aluminum and silicon), distribution of the aluminum sites, crystallinity as well as the acidic properties of the titrated zeolites were compared with those of the pristine zeolites by using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometer (ICP-OES), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), 27Al NMR spectroscopy and the commonly used gas phase Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) of pyridine adsorption method.