Zeolite catalysis benzene oxidation, reaction

Anilines are converted into nitrosoarenes ArNO by the action of hydrogen peroxide in the presence of [Mo(0)(02)2(H20) (HMPA)]224, whereas catalysis of the reaction by titanium silicate and zeolites results in the formation of azoxybenzenes ArN (0)=NAr225. Azo compounds ArN=NAr are formed in 42-99% yields by the phase-transfer assisted potassium permanganate oxidation of primary aromatic amines in aqueous benzene containing a little tetrabutylammonium bromide226. The reaction of arylamines with chromyl chloride gives solid adducts which, on hydrolysis, yield mixtures of azo compounds, p-benzoquinone and p-benzoquinone anils 234227. 

Another example of heterogeneous catalysis by oxo-ions is the one-step oxidation of benzene to phenol with nitrous oxide, N2O. Fe/MFI catalysts have, again been found to be very active. This catalysis was discovered by Iwamoto and has been extensively studied by the group of G. Panov in Novosibirsk. " Preparations of Fe/MFI which appear highly active for this reaction display poor activity for NOj reduction and those which are optimum for that process, are poor for benzene oxidation. This shows that different sites are used. Work by Jia et al. revealed that the active sites for benzene oxidation appear to be Fe-oxo-ions containing only one Fe ion. This does not necessarily mean that the sites are mononuclear. A recent work by Zhu et al. has rather suggested that the site consists of one Fe and one Al + ion, the latter ion having left the zeolite framework. ... 

The selective insertion of an oxygen atom into a benzene carbon-hydrogen bond to yield phenol is not a classical organic chemistry reaction. The first process for such a reactions was the Solutia process, based on discoveries by Panov and coworkers at the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis in Novosibirsk and then developed in close cooperation with Monsanto. In this process, the oxidant is nitrous oxide, N2O, while an iron-containing zeolite is used as the catalyst (Equation 13.4) ... 

In the last years a great interest was paid to the catalytic properties of iron-containing zeolites that show interesting activities in different industrial reactions. The Fe-BEA zeolite is reported to be a good catalyst in the vapour phase alkylation processes [1], the Fe-TON zeolite shows very high activity and selectivity in the olefin isomerization [2, 3]. Finally, new applications of zeolitic catalysts in the partial oxidation catalysis, such as the Solatia Inc. processes for benzene hydroxylation to phenol using Fe-MFI, open a novel route for the use of zeolites in oxidation processes [4, 5]. On the other hand, the catalytic properties of the metal-modified MOR type zeolite in the isomerization process are well known. 

As mentioned earlier in section 2.2, a two-step mechanism via intermediate formation of methanol has been proposed by Adebajo et al, [21-23, 26, 36] for the oxidative mcthylation of benzene with methane over acidic zeolites in a high-pressure batch reactor. In view of this mechanism, a preliminary investigation has been carried out by these workers [24] on the reaction of toluene with methane over acidic ZSM-5 catalysts in a batch reactor containing residual air to determine the actual contribution of direct mcthylation (via intermediate methanol formation) to the observed reaction products. The reactions were carried out at 400 C and 6.9 MPa pressure. The major reaction products obtained by these wwkers were benzene and xylenes. Smaller amounts of ethylbenzene, trimethylbenzene and other higher aromatics were also produced. Over acidic catalysis, the conversion of toluene can, in principle occur through two different reaction pathways mcthylation by methane via methanol (as in the case of benzene mcthylation) and disproportionation, as shown in equations (4) and (S) below ... 

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