Iranian researchers managed to synthesize a type of homogeneous catalyst that improves the efficiency of hydrocarbon oxidation processes commonly available in petroleum, gas and petrochemical industries.
"Thanks to an Al-MCM-41 nano-reactor, we successfully synthesized non-homogeneous catalysts that increase efficiency of cyclohexane oxidation,” Mounes Poorkhosravani, one of the scientists explained to the news service of Iranian Nanotechology Initiative Council (INIC).
“The chemical process in which cyclohexane (a main component of petroleum and natural gas) oxidizes into ketonic and alcoholic products needs a type of non-homogeneous catalyst that guarantees a high selectivity and efficiency and are able to leave reaction vessel easily,” she added.
Inspired by some biologic systems like cytochrome, Poorkhosravani began to synthesize metal complexes with nitrogen ligands like ethylenediamine, bi-pyridine, tetraphenylporphyrin, etc. and immobilize them within mesoporous Al-MCM-41.
Then, she investigated catalytic behaviors of the synthesized compounds in oxidation of cyclohexane by hydrogen peroxide (a powerful oxidizing agent).
“Among all the synthesized catalysts, [Fe(bpy)2Cl2]+/Al-MCM-41 and Fe(III)/Al-MCM-41 provided the best and the worst efficiency values of 60% and 3% respectively," Poorkhosravani reiterated.
she continued saying that in optimal conditions (in terms of duration and amount of catalyst), the catalyst [Fe(bpy)2Cl2]+/Al-MCM-41 is able to convert cyclohexane to cyclohexanone plus cyclohexanol directly with an efficiency of 76%.
For further information on this research work please refer to the Journal of Molecular Catalysis A: Chemical, volume 308, pages 108 to 113, 2009.
