Post-treatment of Ti-MWW zeolite with potassium fluoride for propylene epoxidation

Abstract

Epoxidation of propylene to propylene oxide (PO) with hydrogen peroxide (HPPO) is an environmentally friendly and cost-efficient process in which titanosilicates are used as catalysts. Ti-MWW is a potential industrial catalyst for this process, which involves the addition of HPPO to PO. The silanol groups generated during secondary crystallization unavoidably result in ring-opening of PO and inefficient decomposition of HPPO, which diminish the PO selectivity and the lifespan of Ti-MWW. To address this issue, we conducted post-treatment modifications of the structured Bf-Ti-MWW catalyst with potassium fluoride aqueous solutions. By quenching the silanol groups with potassium fluoride and implanting electron-withdrawing fluoride groups into the Ti-MWW framework, both the catalytic activity and HPPO utilization efficiency were increased. Moreover, the ring opening reaction of PO was prohibited. In a continuous fixed-bed liquid-phase propylene epoxidation reaction, the KF-treated structured Ti-MWW catalyst displayed an exceptionally long lifespan of 2700 h, with a PO yield of 590 g·kg⁻¹·h⁻¹.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

titanosilicates / Ti-MWW / propylene epoxidation / structured catalyst / KF modification

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Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant Nos. 2021YFA1501401 and 2023YFB3810602) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 22222201).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-024-2441-1 and is accessible for authorized users.

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