The Co-N-C Catalyst Synthesized With a Hard-Template and Etching Method to Achieve Well-Dispersed Active Sites for Ethylbenzene Oxidation.

Chun Shen,Zhigang Liu,Hong Chen,Shanshan Jie

doi:10.3389/fchem.2019.00426

Chun Shen, Zhigang Liu + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2019.00426

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Journal: Frontiers in Chemistry	Publication Date: Jun 11, 2019
Citations: 16	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Hunan University, Foshan University

Abstract

Biomass obtained from organic residues gradually becomes one of the optimal renewable feedstock of value added chemicals. Herein, the Co-N-C catalyst was prepared via a hard-template and etching method using the casein as C and N sources, magnesium oxide as the template, and cobalt porphyrin as the metal precursor. The obtained Co-N-C catalyst exhibited excellent catalytic performance for selective oxidation of ethylbenzene with a conversion rate of 96.5% under mild conditions. Moreover, the catalysts were investigated by techniques such as BET, XRD, Raman, transmission electron microscopic (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results showed that the etching progress could improve the dispersion of Co and the exposure of active sites. Herein, the efficient oxidation of ethylbenzene was attributed to the well-dispersed Co-N species and the increased specific surface area.

Highlights

The catalytic conversion of carbon feedstock like petroleum into high value chemicals has been of great importance in the chemical industry (Yang et al, 2015; Den et al, 2018; Pliekhov et al, 2018)
It was noted that the specific surface area and total pore volume of M-Co-N-C-X grew gradually with the etching time increasing, and those of M-Co-N-C-9 were larger than other samples
As a general rule, enlarging the specific surface area of catalyst was conducive to exposing more active sites and strengthening the diffusion of substrates into the reaction regions, which might improve the catalytic performance of the samples (Zhang et al, 2015b; Wan et al, 2016; Wu et al, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

The catalytic conversion of carbon feedstock like petroleum into high value chemicals has been of great importance in the chemical industry (Yang et al, 2015; Den et al, 2018; Pliekhov et al, 2018). Thought the hard-template and etching method, the catalyst containing the highly dispersed active sites with nano-size was prepared and showed the excellent catalytic performance in the selective oxidation of ethylbenzene.

Results

Conclusion