Ultrasound-assisted co-precipitation synthesis of mesoporous Co₃O₄–CeO₂ composite oxides for highly selective catalytic oxidation of cyclohexane

Abstract

The one-step highly selective oxidation of cyclohexane into cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol as the essential intermediates of nylon-6 and nylon-66 is considerably challenging. Therefore, an efficient and low-cost catalyst must be urgently developed to improve the efficiency of this process. In this study, a Co₃O₄–CeO₂ composite oxide catalyst was successfully prepared through ultrasound-assisted co-precipitation. This catalyst exhibited a higher selectivity to KA-oil, which was benefited from the synergistic effects between Co³⁺/Co²⁺ and Ce⁴⁺/Ce³⁺ redox pairs, than bulk CeO₂ and/or Co₃O₄. Under the optimum reaction conditions, 89.6% selectivity to KA-oil with a cyclohexane conversion of 5.8% was achieved over Co₃O₄–CeO₂. Its catalytic performance remained unchanged after five runs. Using the synergistic effects between the redox pairs of different transition metals, this study provides a feasible strategy to design high-performance catalysts for the selective oxidation of alkanes.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Co₃O₄–CeO₂ composite oxides / cyclohexanone / cyclohexanol / ultrasonic-assisted co-precipitation / selective oxidation / solvent-free

References

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