Abstract
Nickel-manganese mixed oxides doped with 1, 3, 5 mol% ytterbia have been prepared by co-precipitation method and used in the catalytic oxidation of benzyl alcohol. Catalytic activity of these oxides calcined at 400 degrees C and 500 degrees C was studied for selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol to the corresponding aldehyde using molecular oxygen as an oxidizing agent. The results showed that thermally stable 5 mol% ytterbia doped nickel-manganese oxide [Yb2O3-(5%)-Ni6MnO8] exhibited highest catalytic performance when it was calcined at 400 degrees C. A 100% conversion of the benzyl alcohol was achieved with > 99% selectivity to benzaldehyde within a reaction period of 5 h at 100 degrees C. The mixed oxide prepared has been characterized by scanning election microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDXA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) and temperature programed reduction (H-2-TPR). (C) 2017 Production and hosting by Elsevier B. V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.