Synthesis of Fe-MCM-41 from silatrane and FeCl3 via sol-gel process and its epoxidation acivity

An iron-containing mesoporous molecular sieve, or Fe-MCM-41, was successfully synthesized the via sol-gel technique using silatrane and FeCl3 as the silicon and iron sources, and was characterized using various techniques. Many factors were investigated, namely, reaction temperature and time, calcination rate, and iron amount in the reaction mixture. It was found that the optimum conditions in which to synthesize Fe-MCM-41 was to carry out the reaction at 60 degrees C for 7 h using a 1 degrees C min(-1) calcination rate and a 550 degrees C calcination temperature. The catalytic activity and selectivity of styrene epoxidation using hydrogen peroxide showed that the selectivity of the styrene oxide reached 65% at a styrene conversion of 22% over the 1%wt catalyst. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.