Synthesis and Application of Supported Cobalt Catalyst for Selective Oxidation of Cyclohexane and Toluene

Selective oxidation of cyclohexane and toluene to cyclohexanol, cyclohexanone and benzoic acid was performed over Al(OH) x-supported cobalt catalyst synthesized by sol-gel method. The effects of cobalt content, calcination temperature, reaction temperature, reaction time and pressure were investigated. In typical processes, 15.1% of conversion and 91.2% of selectivity for selective oxidation of cyclohexane, and 48.9% of conversion and 96.1% of selectivity for toluene selective oxidation were obtained. The results indicated that the catalytic activity of the catalyst for toluene oxidation was very sensitive to the calcination temperature while this phenomenon was not obvious for cyclohexane oxidation. Additionally, the catalyst could be reused after drying at 85 ℃ for 5 h.