Enhanced catalytic performance of molybdenum-doped mesoporous SBA-15 for metathesis of 1-butene and ethene to propene

Abstract

Molybdenum-doped mesoporous SBA-15, mesoporous SBA-15-supported MoO₃/SBA-15, and traditional silica-supported MoO₃/SiO₂ were successfully synthesized. Various techniques, such as XRD, TEM, BET, UV-DRS, Raman, XPS and IR, were used to characterize the above obtained materials. The studies of TEM, XRD and BET confirmed that the highly ordered mesoporous structure of SBA-15 was maintained in the doped Mo-SBA-15 whereas supported MoO₃/SBA-15 showed a significant reduction in surface area due to the deposition of MoO₃ nanoparticles into the SBA-15 channels. XPS studies revealed that a high concentration of Mo⁵⁺ species appeared in doped Mo-SBA-15 whereas supported MoO₃/SBA-15 and MoO₃/SiO₂ only contained Mo⁶⁺ species. The metathesis reaction of 1-butene and ethene to propene was used to evaluate the catalytic performance of Mo-containing materials. The doped Mo-SBA-15 illustrated a superior catalytic performance over the supported MoO₃/SBA-15 and MoO₃/SiO₂ catalysts. The enhancement of catalytic performance for doped Mo-SBA-15 was assigned to the incorporation of Mo species into the SBA-15 framework. Due to the doping method, Mo-SBA-15 exhibited a well-ordered mesoporous structure, a high surface area, and a high concentration of Mo⁵⁺ species, which is beneficial to the catalytic performance for metathesis reactions.