Solvent-free oxidation of benzyl alcohol with oxygen using zeolite-supported Au and Au-Pd catalysts

The oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde has been investigated in the absence of solvent using zeolite-supported Au and Au–Pd catalysts. Three zeolites were investigated, ZSM-5, zeolite β and zeolite Y, and these were contrasted with the titanoslicalite TS-1 and TiO2 as supports. For the Au catalysts the best results are obtained with zeolite β as the support and the conversions were comparable or better than those observed with TiO2 in terms of turn over frequencies. However, the selectivities observed with the acidic zeolites were lower than the non-acidic TS-1 and TiO2. This is due to the subsequent reaction of benzaldehyde via acid catalysed reactions to give benzyl benzoate and its dibenzyl acetal, and, in some cases dibenzylether. Initial catalysts were evaluated with a gold loading of 2 wt% and increasing this to 4 wt% showed the expected increase in activity, indicating that there is scope to improve the performance of these catalysts. The most active catalysts were prepared by impregnation and catalysts prepared by deposition precipitation were considerably less active. Introduction of Pd into the catalyst improved the activity without significantly affecting the selectivity.