Synthesis of Silicalite-1 hollow sphere catalyst and its application for Beckmann rearrangement reaction

Silicalite-1 zeolite hollow sphere structured material was hydrothermally synthesized via the aid of carbon microspheres as hard-template. The morphology, structure, textural and physicochemical properties of the material were characterized with XRD, SEM, FT-IR, N₂ adsorption-desorption isotherm, ²⁹Si MAS NMR, TG, and XPS techniques. It was suggested that the obtained Silicalite-1 hollow spheres were highly crystallized with developed multiple channel structure and abundant surface hydroxyl groups, which endowed the material with excellent catalytic properties in Beckmann rearrangement reaction of cyclohexanone-oxime. Compared with the Silicalite-1 catalyst prepared from conventional method, the Silicalite-1 hollow sphere catalyst showed much higher activity to the conversion of cyclohexanone-oxime (99%) and selectivity of caprolactam (94%), with excellent stability at the same time. The abundant nest silanols and terminal silanols in Silicalite-1 hollow sphere were main active sites for Beckmann rearrangement reaction, and could be easily recovered from the deactivated catalysts by calcination.