Highly efficient V-Mo-Fe-O catalysts for selective oxidation of toluene to benzaldehyde.

The V-Mo-Fe-O catalysts were synthesized by a sol-gel method, characterized and used for the selective oxidation of toluene to benzaldehyde with hydrogen peroxide. The results show that V-Mo-Fe-O catalyst is an effective catalyst, exhibiting a toluene conversion of 40.3%, and a benzaldehyde selectivity of 84.5% at 80 °C. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) shows that the catalyst has nanorod structure with a thin layer compound, which may be constitutive of iron molybdate while the main compound of catalyst is MoV 2 O 8 . Furthermore, the catalyst can be easily recycled and reused for four times without significant changes in its activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]