Aerobic oxidation of alcohols catalyzed by gold nano-particles confined in the walls of mesoporous silica

Gold nano-particles confined in the walls of mesoporous silica (GMS) catalysts were successfully prepared by a novel and simple technique utilizing thioether functional groups in the walls of mesoporous silica to anchor HAuCl4. Calcination of the materials removed organic moieties and reduced the gold salt to gold nano-particles. In this procedure, the thioether groups were introduced into the silica wall via a co-condensation of tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) with 1,4-bis(triethoxysily)propane tetrasulfide. These gold containing mesoporous catalysts have unusually high surface area and pore volume. The catalysts were evaluated for the solvent free liquid phase oxidation of benzyl alcohol by molecular oxygen. High selectivity to benzaldehyde was obtained under the reaction conditions of 403 K, 15 atm and 5 h in an autoclave. The 1.5% GMS catalyst was also evaluated for oxidation of alcohols using toluene as solvent under flowing oxygen at atmospheric pressure at 353 K in a two-necked flask. Under these conditions the conversion of benzyl alcohol reached 100% after 2 h and it was demonstrated that the catalyst can be recycled three times without significant loss of activity.