Regulation of the liquid–solid interface of Cs catalysts for the synthesis of 1,1-Dichloroethylene from 1,1,2-Trichloroethane

[Display omitted] •A facile strategy for controlling the liquid–solid interface of Cs sites is developed by supported ionic liquid (IL) phase.•Cs sites are stabilized via the electrostatic effect with IL anions.•IL promotes the activation of TCE and enhances the desorption of HCl.•The thermodynamic generation process of VDC is promoted within the supported IL phase. There remain considerable challenges for Cs-based catalysts in gas-phase dehydrochlorination of 1,1,2-trichloroethane (TCE) due to their poor catalytic performance and harsh reaction temperature requirements. In this work, we report a novel supported ionic liquid (IL) phase Cs-based system and evaluate its catalytic performance and mechanism, combining the kinetic and DFT calculations. The optimal Cs-IL/SiO2 catalyst achieved the TCE conversion of 60% and the selectivity to 1,1-Dichloroethylene (VDC) of 86% under the mild temperature of 200 °C. It is demonstrated that IL additives can significantly improve the dispersion of Cs species during the catalyst preparation and evaluation process. Moreover, IL promotes the activation of TCE and enhances the desorption efficiency of HCl, which is the main reason for its high activity. The selectivity is improved by changing the adsorption behaviors of the products, which ensures the preferential formation of the main product VDC. The enhanced activity and selectivity of Cs-IL/SiO2 suggest a promising candidate for dehydrochlorination reaction.