The influence of multiwalled carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide additives on the catalytic activity of 3d metal catalysts towards 1-phenylethanol oxidation

- Simple preparation of catalytic composites by ball milling.
- Carbon nanomaterials (CNTs and GO) provide significant yields improvement.
- Mechanochemical preparation of catalysts and catalytic reactions.

3d metal (Cu, Fe, Co, V) containing composite catalysts for the solvent-free microwave-assisted transformation of 1-phenylethanol to acetophenone with tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) as oxidant were prepared by ball milling. The influence of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene oxide (GO) additives on the catalytic activity of the catalysts was studied. CNTs or GO were mixed by ball milling with the metal salts (CoCl2), oxides (CuO, Fe2O3, V2O5) or binary systems (Fe2O3-CoCl2, CoCl2-V2O5, CuO-Fe2O3). For CoCl2-based catalytic systems, addition of small amounts (0.1-5%) of CNTs or GO leads to significant improvement in catalytic activity, e.g. 1% of the CNTs additive allows to rise yields from 28 to 77%, under the same catalytic conditions. The CoCl2-5%CNTs composite is the most active among the studied ones with 85% yield and TON of 43 after 1 h.

Significant improvement in catalytic activity of CoCl2-based catalysts was achieved by addition of 0.1-5% of carbon nano additives143