Liquid Phase Oxidation of Benzene to Phenol with Molecular Oxygen using Carbon-based Fe-Pd and Cu-Pd Catalyst

Liquid phase oxidation of benzene to phenol was carried out with O(2) using carbon-based Fe-Pd and Cu-Pd catalysts at 40℃. The carbon-based Fe-Pd and Cu-Pd catalyst were prepared by modified carbothermal reduction of metal ion exchange method using cation exchange resin as a source of carbon. Fe/carbon, Cu/carbon and Pd/carbon were not effective for the oxidation of benzene to phenol with O(2) when H(2) was used as a catalyst reducing agent, however both Fe/carbon and Cu/carbon catalysts revealed activities when ascorbic acid was used as a reducing agent. Bimetallic catalysts such as Fe-Pd/carbon and Cu-Pd/carbon showed much higher activity for phenol production than the monometallic catalysts even when H(2) was used a reducing agent. Catalytic activity of Fe-Pd catalyst was much (ca. 2.5 times) higher than the Cu-Pd/catalyst. A physical mixture of the single component catalysts such as Fe and Pd or Cu and Pd were not effective in the oxidation of benzene to phenol, suggesting that an intimate contact between Fe or Cu species with Pd species is necessary to formulate an active catalyst.