Cooperative Effects between Hydrophilic Pores and Solvents: Catalytic Consequences of Hydrogen Bonding on Alkene Epoxidation in Zeolites.

Hydrophobic voids within titanium silicates have long been considered necessary to achieve high rates and selectivities for alkene epoxidations with HO. The catalytic consequences of silanol groups and their stabilization of hydrogen-bonded networks of water (HO), however, have not been demonstrated in ways that lead to a clear understanding of their importance. We compare turnover rates for 1-octene epoxidation and HO decomposition over a series of Ti-substituted zeolite *BEA (Ti-BEA) that encompasses a wide range of densities of silanol nests ((SiOH)).