Remarkable promoting effects of BiOCl on the room-temperature selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol over supported Pt catalysts

Abstract

Exploring and understanding efficient promoters is one of the most important issues in nanocatalysis. Herein, we successfully fabricated Pt/BiOCl–MO_x (M = Al or Zn) composites via a facile one-pot solution approach and systematically investigated the promoting effect of BiOCl on the Pt-catalyzed selective oxidation of alcohols under base-free aqueous conditions. It is important to highlight that we for the first time proposed that BiOCl, in addition to traditional Bi metal, could remarkably promote the catalytic performance of Pt/MO_x in the selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol at room temperature with open air as the oxidant. With the assistance of BiOCl, Pt/BiOCl–Al₂O₃ achieved a conversion of benzyl alcohol up to 95.7 ± 0.4% in 3 h with nearly 100% selectivity to aldehyde, surpassing the activity of Pt/Al₂O₃ by ca. 5 times. A kinetic study indicated that the formation of BiOCl could promote the activation of alcohol on Pt/Al₂O₃ and Pt/ZnO composites, which consequently led to the drastic activity improvement.