Selective synthesis of epichlorohydrin: Via liquid-phase allyl chloride epoxidation over a modified Ti-MWW zeolite in a continuous slurry bed reactor

The epoxidation of allyl chloride (ALC) to epichlorohydrin (ECH) with H2O2 using a piperidine (PI)-modified Ti-MWW catalyst (Ti-MWW-PI) in a continuous slurry reactor was investigated to develop an efficient reaction system for the corresponding industrial process. The reaction parameters, including solvent, reaction temperature, t-butanol/ALC mass ratio, ALC/H2O2 molar ratio, weight hourly space velocity of H2O2, and the addition amount of ammonia, were studied in detail to pursue high H2O2 conversion and ECH selectivity. A long catalytic lifetime of 244 h was achieved at high H2O2 conversion (>97.0%) and ECH selectivity (>99.8%) under optimized reaction conditions. The crystallinity was well maintained for the deactivated Ti-MWW-PI catalyst, which was regenerated by a combination of calcination and piperidine treatment.