Liquid-phase oxidation of cyclohexane to cyclohexanone over cobalt-doped SBA-3

Liquid-phase oxidation of cyclohexane was carried out under mild reaction conditions over mesoporous Co/SBA-3 catalyst using aqueous hydrogen peroxide (30%) as oxidant and acetic acid as solvent without adding any initiator. The catalyst exhibited high substrate conversion (91.6%) and reasonable product (cyclohexanone) selectivity (64.3%). Fast hot catalyst filtration experiment proved that the catalyst acted as a heterogeneous one and it can be reused two times without losing its activity to a greater extent.