Influence of platinum on mordenite properties and catalytic activity towards cyclohexene epoxidation

The Pt-containing commercial mordenite catalyst that was synthesized having different Si/Al molar ratios (SAR) = 32, 40, and 50, and it was applied in the epoxidation reaction of cyclohexene. The samples were analysed and confirmed by various physicochemical techniques in powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) for identifying phases and planes, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) for determining textural properties, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) for distinguishing functional groups, high resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM) for finding morphology, temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) to determine stability, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to identify microstructural details. The catalysts were tested for cyclohexene epoxidation reaction in the presence of H2O2as oxidant and acetonitrile as solvent. In this work, cyclohexene maximum conversion and selectivity is obtained with Pt/mordenite (40%) catalyst among the catalysts investigated. The conversion of cyclohexene oxidation recyclability of the Pt/Mordenite (40%) reveals reasonably acceptable conversion efficiency after six cycles, and the catalyst is found to be most suitable for an industrial production application.