Propylene Epoxidation using Molecular Oxygen over Copper- and Silver-Based Catalysts: A Review

Propylene oxide (PO) is a versatile chemical, mainly used in the synthesis of polyurethane plastics. Propylene epoxidation using molecular oxygen could replace the tedious current synthesis protocols, which use expensive H2O2 or organic peroxides as oxidants. This review focuses on the propylene epoxidation reaction using molecular oxygen in the gas phase over copper- and silver-based catalysts. Silver is a proven and industrially used ethylene epoxidation catalyst. However, it initiates allylic hydrogen stripping (AHS) in propylene epoxidation, shifting the selectivity toward unwanted acrolein and total oxidation. Nevertheless, silver has been extensively studied to determine if AHS could be mitigated by targeted active site design and various doping strategies. Copper-based catalysts have been less extensively studied but have been experimentally proved as well as theoretically confirmed that their PO selectivity is on par with that of silver. In this review, different catalyst modification strategies have been analyzed and the achieved improvements discussed. Theoretical approaches aimed at understanding the mechanism and predicting catalytic performance on the basis of electronic states (density functional theory calculations) are also reviewed. We conclude with a future outlook on how the current state of the art knowledge of active site modification and reaction engineering approaches could leverage the PO selectivity toward industrial requirements, thus enabling a breakthrough in gas-phase propylene epoxidation using O2.