Preparation of tantalum-pillared magadiite and its catalytic performance in Beckmann rearrangement

Vapor phase Beckmann rearrangement of cyclohexanone oxime to ε-caprolactam has been carried out using tantalum-pillared magadiites (Ta-magadiites) with different surface areas as catalysts. The Ta-magadiite catalysts of relatively large surface areas showed high catalytic activities, due to a large number of active sites. For the Ta-magadiite catalyst of the largest surface area, the oxime conversion reached 99.1%, with 97.5% of lactam selectivity. FT-IR and NH₃-TPD results demonstrated that the new hydroxyl groups and a large amount of acidic sites generated by Ta pillaring into the magadiite interlayer were responsible for the high catalytic performance of Ta-magadiite catalyst.