Selective oxidation of hydrocarbons to value-added oxygenated compounds has received continuous growing interest in heterogeneous catalysis. Here, we report La-doped cerium oxide catalysts which were synthesized by an inverse micelle templated evaporation induced self-assembly procedure and their excellent catalytic activity for selective oxidation of hydrocarbons to corresponding oxygenated compounds. The chemical and structural properties of the La-CeO2 materials were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, nitrogen sorption, electron microscopy, and secondary ion mass spectrometry. Material characterization results revealed the formation of a crystalline material which exhibits micro-meso pore size distributions with high surface areas &gt;100 m2 g-1 and a morphology comprising of spherical nanoclusters. The catalysts show homogeneous distribution of La on CeO2 by EDX mapping and the SIMS analysis confirms the successful doping. The La-CeO2 catalysts are highly selective (&gt;95% in most cases) and sufficiently active (&gt;55% in most cases) towards selective oxidation of stable sp3 hybridized benzylic C–H bonds of different hydrocarbons. The ease of product separation, great functional group tolerability, versatile synthetic scope, stability for leaching, and high reusability (up to four cycles) are the notable features of these catalysts and reaction conditions. The model reaction studied which is the selective oxidation of ethylbenzene goes through first order kinetics and formation of the oxygenated compound acetophenone occurs via a radical mediated mechanism.

Selective oxidation of hydrocarbons by La doped cerium oxide catalysts

2019 Spring National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.