Preparation of hierarchical TS-1 molecular sieve membrane catalyst and its catalytic performance for chloropropylene epoxidation

TS-1 molecular sieve spherical membranes loaded on small-sized carriers with hierarchical pore structures and high framework-titanium contents could both exhibit high catalytic performances and facilitate the separation from the products after the reaction. In this paper, a simple in situ static crystallization method was used to achieve the construction of hierarchical porous TS-1 molecular sieve membranes on the surfaces of 400-µm spherical ZrO₂ carriers using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and soluble starch as mesoporous templating agents. Through the catalyst characterization and performance evaluation, soluble starch was finally selected as the mesoporous templating agent, and the film-forming mechanism was investigated by examining the effects of the proportion of precursor liquid and the crystallization conditions. In the chloropropene epoxidation reaction, the effective utilization of H₂O₂ and the selectivity of epichlorohydrin (ECH) reached 96.72% and 93.85%, respectively.