New developments in direct olefin epoxidation

Abstract EN

-This paper reviews new developments in direct olefin epoxidation from the perspectives of both industrial catalyst development and fundamental understanding.

For ethylene epoxidation, more progress has been made in reaction mechanism studies, such as the roles of oxygen species, promoters, and moderators, than in catalyst development.

The epoxidation of butadiene to epoxybutene, on the other hand, has recently had a major breakthrough in catalyst development, which was followed by commercialization.

The epoxidation of propylene to propylene oxide has also been a subject of interest in both industry and academia.

A variety of silver-based catalyst systems and reaction conditions have been studied, primarily in industrial research laboratories.

But the progress has been incremental because of the unique difficulty of protecting the allylic hydrogen under oxidizing conditions.

In various places this paper also compares the similarities and differences of three important direct epoxidation reactions