Entrapment of peroxophosphotungstate in SBA-15 by silylation and its catalytic efficiency in the epoxidation of soybean oil

The efficient catalysts were designed to allow the entry and release of reactants and products into the mesoporous SBA-15 in which the active sites, peroxophosphotungstate, were entrapped by silylation with three different silylating agents (C 3 , C 5 , and C 8 arm). The as-prepared catalysts were characterized by elemental analysis, ICP analysis, TGA, XRD, N 2 adsorption/desorption, SEM, TEM, and FT-IR spectra. Their catalytic performances were tested for the epoxidation of soybean oil using different parameters such as temperature, H 2 O 2 to unsaturation molar ratio, catalyst loading and stirring speed. The resulting epoxidized soybean oil was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively by FT-IR and 1 HNMR. The results confirmed that the catalyst silylated with C 8 arm is promising for the synthesis of epoxides of long-chain carbon and reusable at least three times without obvious decrease in activity. Moreover, use of H 2 O 2 oxidant and free of solvent in the epoxidation reaction are the main advantages of these catalysts.