Tailoring Porosity and Titanium Species of TS-1 Zeolites via Organic Base-assisted Sequential Post-treatment

The exploration of high-efficient catalysts based on hierarchical Ti-containing zeolites with optimized active titanium species distribution is of great value in enhancing the epoxidation of bulky olefins. Herein, hierarchical TS-1(MFI) zeolite with an extra-large external surface area(210 m2/g) and highly active octahedral-coordinated Ti species was prepared via organic base-assisted sequential post-treatment. Such a catalyst afforded a high turnover number value(TON, 114) in 1-octene epoxidation reaction, which was over twice than that(53) of the untreated conventional microporous TS-1 parent. According to the detailed characterization results, we revealed the hierarchical porosity construction effect of tetrapropylamonium hydroxide(TPAOH) treatment(first step) and the octahedral-coordinated Ti species fabrication effect of ethylamine(EA) treatment(second step) under hydrothermal condition. Such a facile post-treatment strategy reported in this work may provide guidance for the rational synthesis of TS-1 zeolite with enhanced catalytic activity.