Improved Ti-containing Mesoporous Silica Catalyst Synthesized by Using Anionic Surfactant as Co-template

Ti-containing mesoporous silica materials(Ti-MSs) with isolated tetrahedrally coordinated Ti species have been widely applied in bulk molecular catalysis. Herein, Ti-MSs were synthesized using anionic surfactant SDS as the co-template. The SDS molecular assembled structures can interact with silica species through the interface hydrogen bonds leading to the formation of mesoporous silica structure with compact Ti-O bonds, lower hydrophilicity and low template cost. The influence of adding SDS as the co-template on the oxidation of styrene with aqueous H2O2as the oxidant was investigated. Ti-MSs using SDS as the co-template showed better catalytic performance as compared with mesoporous titanium silicate synthesized with CTAB serving as the sole template. Moreover, the Ti-MSs synthesized at a Ti/Si ratio of 0.005 demonstrated an optimized performance for styrene oxidation with styrene conversion improved by 14.8%, benzaldehyde selectivity improved by 13.7% and styrene oxide selectivity improved by 9.2% when the reaction time was 6 h.