Terminal oxidation of long linear alkanes in liquid phase

• Main Author: Huguet, Edouard
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: Cardiff University 2009

The aim of this project is to investigate the terminal activation of long chain linear alkanes in the liquid phase using the selective oxidation of w-decane to 1-decanol as a model reaction. Firstly the autoxidation of -decane with oxygen was studied. The product distribution is a mixture of Cio ketones and alcohols with shorter chain carboxylic acids. The radical autoxidation mechanism promotes oxidation in the internal position and a very low terminal selectivity is found in the product profile. A range of VMgO catalysts were tested for the oxidation of w-decane with oxygen. Leached vanadium from VMgO leads to an improvement to the conversion over the autoxidation while the same terminal selectivity was observed. Cobalt substituted zeolites catalysts were also investigated. The porous structure of the different zeolites did not improve the terminal selectivity. No cobalt leaching was observed. The silanation of the external surface of the zeolites before ion exchange with cobalt reduces the conversion compared to the same cobalt zeolites without silanation, but does not improve the terminal selectivity. Finally, a comparison of the best results published in the literature for the oxidation of n-hexane in the liquid phase has been carried out. Higher terminal selectivities for the autoxidation were observed than those reported. Autoxidation terminal selectivities match with the best catalysts reported in the literature.