Aerosol-assisted synthesis of hierarchical porous titanosilicate molecular sieve as catalysts for cyclohexene epoxidation

Abstract

Hierarchical titanosilicate composites (HTS) have been synthesized by an aerosol spray method, by which TS-1 nanoparticles were assembled with cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide and tetraethylorthosilicate/tetra-n-butyl titanate to form a hierarchical porous composites with a core–shell structure. The structure, porosity, morphology and composition of the materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction, nitrogen adsorption isotherm, Raman spectroscopy, electron microscopy and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. The hierarchical porous molecular sieve combines the advantages of TS-1 and Ti-KIT-1, and shows high activity and selectivity to epoxide in cyclohexene epoxidation with H2O2. The yield of cyclohexene oxide on HTS is much higher than those on TS-1 and Ti-KIT-1. The selectivities to cyclohexene oxide and 1,2-cyclohexanediol can be adjusted by varying the titanium contents of the HTS samples.