Chemical Engineering Science, Vol.71, 564-572, 2012
New mesoporous magnesium-aluminum mixed oxide and its catalytic activity in liquid phase Baeyer-Villiger oxidation reaction
Baeyer-Villiger oxidation is a very important reaction in the organic synthesis for designing value added lactone/esters from the respective carbonyl compounds. Usually an active metal-containing material in the presence of peroxides catalyzes this reaction. Here mesoporous magnesium-aluminum mixed oxide material has been synthesized hydrothermally using lauric acid as structure-directing or capping agent. This mesoporous material is thoroughly characterized by powder XRD, N-2 and CO2 adsorption, HR TEM, FE SEM-EDS, FT IR and TG-DTA techniques. The material showed moderately good surface area (244 m(2) g(-1)) and mesoporosity with nanoscale pore dimension (ca. 4.8 nm). Liquid phase Baeyer-Villiger oxidations of cyclic and acyclic ketones have been carried out using this mesoporous material as catalyst in the presence of hydrogen peroxide as oxidant and benzonitrile as promoter. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.