Investigation of catalytic activity of vanadyl sulphate immobilized on prepared UiO-66 modified with urea and melamine as allyl alcohol epoxidation catalysts

The modification of UiO-66 with urea and melamine were carried out using ZrCl 4 , benzene dicarboxylic acid and designated as U-B-Zr and M-B-Zr, followed by immobilization of vanadyl sulphate on U-B-Zr and M-B-Zr as U-B-Zr-VO-and M-B-Zr-VO, respectively. The prepared compounds as catalysts were characterized by XRD, BET, XPS, TGA, SEM, FTIR and CHN techniques. It was found that the prepared catalysts show moderate to high activity towards the epoxidation of some allyl alcohols such as trans-2-hexene-1-ol and 1-octen-3-ol and geraniol with 80%–100% conversions and 100% selectivity towards the formation of the corresponding epoxides. The prepared catalysts were also found to be reusable up four catalytic cycles without any appreciable loss in activity.