Ketonization of propionic acid over TS-1 and Ti-Beta zeolites: Mechanism and effects of topology and hydrophobicity

Abstract

Ketonization of propionic acid has been investigated on Lewis acidic TS-1 and Ti-Beta zeolites to understand the reaction mechanism and effects of pore topology and hydrophobicity. Characterizations showed that TS-1 and Ti-Beta (Si/Ti = 40) exhibited a similar acidity whereas TS-1 was more hydrophobic than the silanol-rich Ti-Beta. TS-1 showed higher activity, selectivity, stability and was more resistance to H2O than Ti-Beta. A combination of infrared spectroscopic, isotopic and kinetic studies showed that the molecularly adsorbed monodentate propionic acid is the most abundant reactive intermediate, and C-C coupling is the rate-determining step. The mechanism of ketonization of propionic acid at isolated tetrahedral Ti centers can be described by a Langmuir-Hinshelwood model. The turnover rate on TS-1-40 is ∼ 1.3 times higher than that on Ti-Beta-40, which is consistent with the lower fitted free activation energy, i.e., the energy difference between C-C coupling transition state and two co-adsorbed propionic acids at a Ti center. The slightly lower activation enthalpy on Ti-Beta-40 than TS-1-40 is over-compensated by much larger entropy penalty, due to more silanol groups and hydrogen bonded propionic acids in close proximity to the Ti center for Ti-Beta-40, which impose additional steric hindrance to bulkier C-C coupling complex at transition state and outweigh the difference of steric hindrance of pore confinement between MFI and BEA frameworks. This work provides insight into the ketonization mechanism on Lewis acidic zeolites, and indicates that moderate pore size with hydrophobic property promotes ketonization of carboxylic acid at isolated tetrahedral Ti centers confined in zeolites.