Yong-An Guo

A significant promotion of the iron tetra(p-methoxylphenyl) porphyrin catalysis for the aerobic oxidation of cyclohexane using boehmite

An important issue for the application of metalloporphyrins in the chemical industry is the preparation of a reusable and active supported catalyst. In this work, a new nanocatalyst material consisting of boehmite and a second-generation iron tetraphenylporphyrin with electron-donating groups (methoxyl) has been prepared and characterised using UV-Vis and FT-IR spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and thermal analysis. The reusability of the boehmite-supported iron tetra (p-methoxylphenyl) porphyrin catalyst for the aerobic oxidation of cyclohexane was investigated. The supported catalyst material containing only 1 mg of iron tetra (p-methoxylphenyl) porphyrin per 1 g of boehmite could be recovered easily and reused effectively for at least 10 times for the oxidation of cyclohexane. The oxidative results gave, on average, 5.1% cyclohexane conversion, 91.2% selectivity (ketone + alcohol) and a catalyst turnover number of 7.91 × 104 over several cycles using moderate reaction conditions. The special character of the catalyst material is related to the structure of the combined boehmite and iron porphyrin.