Heterogeneous and non-acid process for production of epoxidized soybean oil from soybean oil using hydrogen peroxide as clean oxidant over TS-1 catalysts

In order to develop an efficient and environmental friendly approach for epoxidation of soybean oil (SO), a series of hetero-catalysts, titanium silicalite-1 (TS-1) with different Si/Ti ratio (TS-1-x, x = 40, 70, 80), mesoporous TS-1-40 (MTS-1-40) and anatase TiO2, were prepared under controlled conditions. These different catalysts were characterized by various characterization methods like XRD, IR, UV–Vis, TGA, ICP, SEM, TEM and N2-adsorption, respectively, and the catalytic reaction experiments of the SO epoxidation were studied systematically using hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as clean oxidant over the different catalysts. The results reveal that the TS-1-x catalysts exhibit higher epoxidation catalytic activity and less consumption of H2O2 than anatase TiO2, and the number of framework Ti sites in TS-1 structure played a very important role in their catalytic performance of the epoxidation reaction, which is attributed to the unique nature and coordination geometry of the Ti sites in TS-1 framework. Furthermore, the reusability and regeneration behaviors of TS-1-40 catalyst were also studied.