Direct synthesis, characterization and catalytic performance of novel Ti-SBA-1 cubic mesoporous molecular sieves

The 3d-cubic Pm3n Ti-incorporated SBA-1 mesoporous molecular sieves were directly synthesized under strongly acidic conditions and characterized by various techniques. XRD showed that the synthesized mesoporous materials had a well-ordered cubic structure. N2 adsorption/desorption measurements confirmed that the resultant samples had large mesopores (ca. 20 Å) and high surface areas (>1000 m2 g−1). UV-vis and FT-IR results revealed that incorporated titanium species existed in a highly dispersed state and had tetrahedral coordination. SEM is used to determine the particle size and particle morphology of the synthesized materials. A catalytic test using epoxidation of styrene as a probe reaction proved that the framework Ti in the Ti-SBA-1 possessed relatively high activity and selectivity.