Dry-gel synthesis of hierarchical TS-1 zeolite by using P123 and polyurethane foam as template

Abstract

Hierarchical TS-1 zeolites have been prepared via a rapid dry-gel conversion (DGC) technique from carbon–titanosilicate composite. The carbon–titanosilicate composite was fabricated by dipping the silicon source, titanium source and P123 tri-block copolymer into polyurethane (PU) foam, and then carbonized in situ. The carbon–titanosilicate composite was transformed into TS-1 zeolites by DGC method with the aid of zeolite seeding gel. The dual carbon templates with different size obtained from carbonation of P123 and PU were used to direct mesostructure and macroporous architectures respectively. The resulting samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, IR spectroscopy, SEM and N2 adsorption to evaluate the textural properties. The hierarchical zeolites exhibits large pore volumes (0.3–0.8cm3g−1), hierarchical pore sizes (2–50nm), and high external surface areas (158–211m2g−1). Epoxidation of 1-hexene and cyclohexene were used as probe reaction to survey the catalytic capacity of the resulted zeolites and this hierarchical zeolite showed well catalytic capacities to epoxidation of cyclohexene.