Micropore blocking strategy for mitigating adsorption and diffusion limitations in the direct epoxidation of propylene

Abstract

The direct epoxidation of propylene has been a hot topic in the academic field for years. Researchers have spent extensive effort on the development of catalyst, however, only limited attention on the effect of reaction conditions, especially pressure. In this paper, we found for the first time that elevated pressure should favor the forward epoxidation reaction, it actually led to a drop of reaction rate in this system. We proposed explanation by considering the difficulty of gas molecules diffusing into and out of the micropores on the TS-1 zeolite surface. Higher pressure would inhibit the escaping of the gas molecules from the micropores and lead to carbon deposition inside the channel. To validate this hypothesis, we designed and compared catalysts with micropores blocked (BTS-1) and unblocked (TS-1) and found that the BTS-1 showed higher resistance to pressure change and significantly longer life time than the TS-1.