A novel iron(III)-based heterogeneous catalyst for aqueous oxidation of alcohols using molecular oxygen

Abstract

A novel silica supported iron(III)-based heterogeneous catalyst (FeCl3-imine@SiO2) has been synthesized and characterized by several techniques, such as FTIR, nitrogen adsorption analysis (BET), SEM-EDX, XRD, EPR, AAS and XPS analyses. The catalyst showed excellent activity for selective oxidation of alcohols to corresponding carbonyl compounds in water under atmospheric pressure of oxygen without using any additive. Notably, the heterogeneous catalyst showed remarkable improvement over its homogeneous counterpart, which might be attributable to the synergic effect between the metal and the supported ligand. The catalyst could be easily recovered by simple filtration and reused several times without compromising its activity. A wide range of primary and secondary alcohols including heterocyclic alcohols are tolerated as substrates.