Aerobic oxidation of benzyl alcohol in methanol solutions over Au nanoparticles: Mg(OH)2 vs MgO as the support

Miguel Estrada, Vinícius V. Costa, Sergey Beloshapkin, Sergio Fuentes, Evgenii Stoyanov, Elena V. Gusevskaya, Andrey Simakov

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Magnesium oxide and magnesium hydroxide materials containing supported gold nanoparticles (NPs), Au/Mg(OH)2 and Au/MgO, were prepared from the commercial MgO through the deposition-precipitation (DP) method and characterized by XRD, XPS, HRTEM, FTIR spectroscopy and N2 adsorption techniques. It was found that the starting MgO support was fully transformed into the Mg(OH)2 phase during the DP procedure. A nearly complete dehydration of the magnesium hydroxide and formation of Au/MgO was achieved through the reductive treatment at 500 C, whereas the treatment at 350 C still resulted in the Au/Mg(OH)2 material. The FTIR analysis showed a much higher ability of the Au/MgO surface to adsorb both benzyl alcohol and benzaldehyde (ca. 10 and 3 times, respectively), as compared to Au/Mg(OH) 2. Probably for this reason, the Au/MgO catalyst exhibited ca. 50% higher catalytic activity in the aerobic oxidation/oxidative methoxylation of benzyl alcohol in the methanol solutions with respect to the amount of surface gold atoms as compared to the Au/Mg(OH)2 catalyst, in spite of a larger size of the Au NPs. In addition, the thermal treatment of the catalyst at 500 C to dehydrate the support allowed to suppress the undesired side reaction between benzyl alcohol and primarily formed benzaldehyde to give benzyl benzoate.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)96-103
    Number of pages8
    JournalApplied Catalysis A, General
    Volume473
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 5 Mar 2014

    Keywords

    • Benzyl alcohol
    • Gold catalysts
    • Magnesium hydroxide
    • Magnesium oxide
    • Oxidation

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Aerobic oxidation of benzyl alcohol in methanol solutions over Au nanoparticles: Mg(OH)2 vs MgO as the support'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this