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98% after 3 h. In contrast, the conversion of 4-methylbenzyl al-
cohol and 4-methoxybenzyl alcohol with dimensions of 101.27
and 107.57 cm3 molÀ1, respectively, decreased to 95 and 92%
under similar conditions. 4-tert-Butylbenzyl alcohol, a larger al-
cohol with molecular dimension of 142.72 cm3 molÀ1 gave
a conversion of about 63% after 12 h. Although the 4-tert-
butyl group activated the benzene ring the most (better than
the methyl and methoxy group), the conversion of 4-tert-butyl-
benzyl alcohol was the lowest. The catalytic activity and selec-
tivity of the MOF seemed to depend on the size of the sub-
strates and their accessibility to surface pores. It is thereby rea-
sonable that the reactants with smaller sizes such as benzyl al-
cohol could diffuse swiftly through the pores. In contrast, the
substrates with larger sizes were not readily diffused through
the pores, but they may adsorb onto the surface pores con-
taining Keggin complexes, and the polyanions catalyzed the
reaction at the surface of the pores. In many systems, the ali-
phatic alcohols with longer carbon chains performed better
than the shorter ones.[2,7] The same trend was observed in this
system when comparing the reaction efficiency of nC8H17OH
and nC12H25OH. However, nC12H25OH also showed a higher con-
version than nC16H31OH, which was assumed to be due to this
chemoselectivity.
Figure 8. The recycling study. Each column represents the conversion of
benzyl alcohol; the lines represent the selectivity of benzaldehyde.
ology, selectivity, and reusability of MOF-HPW were further
studied in detail. The catalytic activity and selectivity of the
catalyst seem to depend on the size of the substrates and
their accessibility to surface pores. The reactants with smaller
sizes such as benzyl alcohol could diffuse swiftly through the
pores thus a higher efficiency was obtained. Also, good recy-
clability was exhibited in the CTAB micellar system. After com-
pletion of the oxidation reaction, the mixture was allowed to
cool to room temperature and was extracted with diethyl
ether. The catalyst remained in the aqueous layer for use in
the next run. With benzyl alcohol as substrate, the procedure
was successfully repeated five times without any great loss of
catalytic activity.
Overall, the MOF-HPW catalyst demonstrated great catalytic
activity. For a series of alcohols including benzylic, allylic, heter-
ocyclic, and alicyclic alcohols as substrates, good to excellent
yields were obtained with ketones or aldehydes as the only de-
tected products. Furthermore, the catalyst showed clear che-
moselectivity, which was related to the size of the substrates
or their accessibility to surface pores.
The advantage of the catalytic system lies in not only the
high catalytic activity in aqueous solvent with H2O2 as oxidant,
but also the easy recovery of both catalyst and solvent. Since
both the catalyst and solvent were immiscible with diethyl
ether, the catalytic system could be recovered after extraction,
to the maximum amount. After completion of the oxidation re-
action, the mixture was allowed to cool to room temperature
and was extracted with diethyl ether. The aqueous layer, con-
taining the catalyst, was able to be separated and reused with
the addition of substrate without any treatment. The organic
layer, containing the products, was analyzed after drying with
anhydrous sodium sulfate. When benzyl alcohol was used as
a model substrate, the procedure was successfully repeated
five times without any great loss of catalytic activity (Figure 8).
Experimental Section
Materials and methods
All the solvents and reagents were purchased from Sinopharm
Chemical Reagent Co. Ltd and were used without further purifica-
tion. IR spectra were recorded on a NICOLET NEXUS870 instrument.
Products were identified by using a 6820 gas chromatograph (GC)
with an Agilent Technologies HP-Innowax (30 mꢂ0.32 mmꢂ
0.5 mm). XRD data were collected with CuKa radiation on Bruker C8
ADVANCE spectrometer. TEM images were recorded on a JEM-2100
instrument. TGA was performed on a TGA/SDTA851e instrument
under a N2 atmosphere from 50 to 7008C, with a heating rate of
108CminÀ1 and N2 flowing rate of 30 mLminÀ1. Calculation of the
volume was performed by using Gaussian 03 at the B3LYP/6-31G+
+(d,p) level.
Conclusion
Catalyst preparation
In conclusion, we have synthesized a series of POM-based
metal–organic frameworks in this study. The catalysts were
easily prepared and exhibited an ordered size and morphology.
The nanosized MOF-POMs, which offered organized multiple
porosity and high surface area, were proven to be an efficient
catalyst for various alcohol oxidations in CTAB micellar solu-
tion. With MOF-HPW as model catalyst, a wide set of aliphatic,
allylic, heterocyclic, and benzylic alcohols were oxidized into
their corresponding carbonyl compounds with good to excel-
lent yields. The reaction conditions, generality of the method-
Preparation of HKUST-1: HKUST-1 was prepared according to Ref-
erence [10b]. In a typical procedure, a slurry of Cu(OH)2 (0.98 g,
0.01 mol) in water (18 mL) was added to a solution containing tri-
mesic acid (TA, 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylic acid; 2.1 g, 0.01 mol), di-
methyl formamide (DMF, 10 mL), and ethyl alcohol (46.6 mL) under
moderate stirring. The molar composition of the resulting mixture
was 1Cu/1TA/12.9DMF/80EtOH/100H2O. The crystallization was
carried out at room temperature under moderate stirring. After-
wards, the product was recovered by filtration and washed with
ethanol, and finally dried at 658C.
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