Highly effective methylated Ti MCM-41 catalyst for cyclohexene oxidation

Abstract A series of Ti containing MCM-41 materials were synthesized with different Si/Ti molar ratios and tested for cyclohexene epoxidation reaction. TiMCM-41 with Si/Ti ratio 40 which gave maximum conversion and selectivity to epoxide was methylated with methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) in this reaction. Accordingly, four different methyl loading (5, 10, 15 and 20 mol % of MTES w.r.t. TEOS) TiMCM-41(Si/Ti 40) samples were prepared. The materials were characterized by different physical techniques such as PXRD, FT-IR spectroscopy, UV–vis DRS spectroscopy, N2 adsorption-desorption isotherm, SEM-EDX, TEM, TGA and ICP-OES. The catalysts were then tested for cyclohexene epoxidation reaction in the presence of H2O2 avoiding TBHP. The conversion and selectivity for cyclohexene obtained with 10MeTiM-1 (Si/Ti 40) were found to be the best not only among the catalysts investigated in the present work, but also among all the catalysts studied so far for the reaction.