ABSTRACT
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the University of Akron, Akron, OH, 44325
schuang@uakron.edu
Abstract The surface OH (i.e., hydroxyl) group plays an important role in the formation of C3 oxygenates. Propionaldehyde and acetone are proposed to be formed via a common intermediate because they have the same maximum formation rates at 160 °C on Au/TiO2-SiO2 and 140 °C on Au/TiOx-SiO2. The propylene oxide formation occurs at higher temperature than that of propionaldehyde and acetone, suggesting its unique formation pathway which may involve different form of adsorbed oxygen and the active site. Introduction The activity and selectivity of propylene partial oxidation is very sensitive to the catalyst composition and reaction conditions (1, 2). Extensive studies have shown that Au supported on TiO2 is one of the most active and selective catalysts for CO oxidation in the presence of H2 and propylene epoxidation producing propylene oxide (i.e., PO) from propylene and oxygen in presence of hydrogen (3-8).
