Aliphatic alcohols oxidation with Hydrogen Peroxide in water catalyzed by supported Phosphotungstic acid (PTA) on Silica coated MgAl2O4 nanoparticles as a recoverable catalyst

In this paper, a novel catalyst (MgAl2O4@SiO2-PTA) was proposed for the green oxidation of aliphatic alcohols. The resultant composite was characterized by different techniques, such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), SEM, FT-IR, EDX and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis. The prepared nanocomposite was used as a catalyst for oxidation of aliphatic alcohols with hydrogen peroxide in water at 90. Aliphatic alcohols were converted to aldehydes and ketones. Primary alcohols were converted to aldehydes but secondary alcohols were converted to ketones. Cyclohexanol is very active in this catalyst system but no product was detected in cyclohexanol oxidation without catalyst. It is noteworthy to highlight that the catalyst is environmentally friendly since it could be recovered by a simple filtration. The catalyst was reused for at least four successive times without any changes or loss of its high catalytic activity.