Selectivity Engineering Of A Cyclohexane Oxidation Reaction Using Solid Acid Catalyst

Abstract

In chemical industry selective oxidation of hydrocarbons are of great importance. In most of the oxidation reactions, complete oxidation results into undesirable products. Oxidation of hydrocarbon to more valuable organic compound such as alcohol, ketone, aldehyde requires selective oxidation of strong C-H bond. Cyclohexane oxidation represents a typical example of this kind of reactions, which became an interesting subject from academic and industrial point of view. On a commercial scale most of the cyclohexane produced is used for the production of cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol, which is also known as KA-(Ketone-Alcohol) oil. KA-oil is an important intermediate in the in the production of Nylon-6 and Nylon-66. In the present commercial process for cyclohexane oxidation, reaction is carried out at 150 oC. and 1-2 MPa pressure which a ords 4% conversion and 70-85 % selectivity to cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol over metal cobalt salt or boric acid. This shows tremendous scope for improvement in conversion or selectivity for KA-oil production. Objective of the present work is to develop heterogeneous catalytic system to enhance the conversion and selectivity for KA oil. Various catalysts were synthesized and activity of the same was tested for cyclohexane oxidation reaction using molecular oxygen. Ag-SBA-15 catalyst has shown about 10.5 % conversion with 86 % selectivity for KA-oil. Catalyst was characterized to correlate with its activity for cyclohexane oxidation.