title: Tuning the Synthesis of Manganese Oxides Nanoparticles for Efficient Oxidation of Benzyl Alcohol.
abstract: The liquid phase oxidation of benzyl alcohol is an important reaction for generating benzaldehyde and benzoic acid that are largely required in the perfumery and pharmaceutical industries. The current production systems suffer from either low conversion or over oxidation. From the viewpoint of economy efficiency and environmental demand, we are aiming to develop new high-performance and cost-effective catalysts based on manganese oxides that can allow the green aerobic oxidation of benzyl alcohol under mild conditions. It was found that the composition of the precursors has significant influence on the structure formation and surface property of the manganese oxide nanoparticles. In addition, the crystallinity of the resulting manganese nanoparticles was gradually improved upon increasing the calcination temperature; however, the specific surface area decreased obviously due to pore structure damage at higher calcination temperature. The sample calcined at the optimal temperature of 600 °C from the precursors without porogen was a Mn3O4-rich material with a small amount of Mn2O3, which could generate a significant amount of [Formula: see text] species on the surface that contributed to the high catalytic activity in the oxidation. Adding porogen with precursors during the synthesis, the obtained catalysts were mainly Mn2O3crystalline, which showed relatively low activity in the oxidation. All prepared samples showed high selectivity for benzaldehyde and benzoic acid. The obtained catalysts are comparable to the commercial OMS-2 catalyst. The synthesis-structure-catalysis interaction has been addressed, which will help for the design of new high-performance selective oxidation catalysts.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Jingyuan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fei
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin, 541004, China.
authors.forename: Lixian
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Cuifeng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Huajuan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ling
authors.affiliation: School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Xia
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Yuxiang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia. jun.huang@sydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia. zongwen.liu@sydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Zongwen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
keywords: Aerobic oxidation; Benzyl alcohol; Manganese oxides; Synthesis–structure–catalysis interaction