Anchoring tri(8-quinolinolato)iron onto SBA-15 for partial oxidation of benzyl alcohol using water as the solvent

Tri(8-quinolinolato)iron complex immobilized onto SBA-15 catalyst has been synthesized through a stepwise procedure. The characterization results indicated that the BET surface area, total pore volume and average pore width decrease after stepwise modification of SBA-15, while the structure keeps intact. Catalytic tests showed that FeQ3-SBA-15 catalyzes the oxidation reaction well with 34.8% conversion of benzyl alcohol and 74.7% selectivity to benzaldehyde when water is used as the solvent after 1 h reaction. In addition, homogeneous catalyst tri(8-quinolinolato)iron exhibits very bad catalytic behavior using water as the solvent.