Selective Oxidation of Toluene with Hydrogen Peroxide Catalyzed by V-Mo-based Catalyst

The selective catalytic oxidation of toluene with hydrogen peroxide over V-Mo-based catalysts under mild conditions was studied. The promotion effect of Mo on the catalysts was studied with V/Al2O3 and Mo/Al2O3 as reference samples. The catalysts were characterized by XRD, TPR, and XPS techniques. The results show that the addition of Mo to V/Al2O3 may change the distribution of V species on Al2O3 surface. Over V-Mo/Al2O3 catalyst, highly dispersed amorphous V species facilitates benzaldehyde formation, and crystalline V2O5 species increases the conversion of toluene but decreases the selectivity to benzaldehyde, while AlVMoO7 species favors both the conversion of toluene and the formation of cresols. The yield of benzaldehyde depends remarkably on the surface O/Al and Mo/V atomic ratios, and gets to a maximum value of 13.2% with a selectivity of 79.5% at an O/Al atomic ratio of 3.0 and Mo/V atomic ratio of 0.7.