EVALUATION OF CATALYTIC IMPLEMENTATION OF SPINEL CoFe2O4LOADED NaY IN DIRECT HYDROXYLATION OF BENZENE TO PHENOL

Spinel cobalt ferrite CoFe2O4 was synthesized and in situ incorporated onto the porous structure of NaY zeolite by the co-precipitation process. The structural design of CoFe2O4/NaY composite was advantageous in terms of activity and stability. Various techniques were utilized to characterize the catalysts like X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and pore structure analysis by N2 adsorption at 77 K. It has been found that spinal CoFe2O4 in CoFe2O4/NaY was sparse on the NaY surface, along with the relevant species inside the zeolite pores. The SEM surface morphology suggests that CoFe2O4 has an irregular structure of large aggregated crystals, whereas CoFe2O4/NaY exhibited predominantly a uniform spherical-like morphology of smaller particle sizes and small cavities on the external surface. The direct hydroxylation of benzene with H2O2 as a green oxidant was inspected. The effects of the amount of test dose of the CoFe2O4/NaY catalyst, concentration of H2O2, and the reaction temperature were studied. Higher yield of phenol was obtained with increasing the concentration of H2O2, catalyst dose and temperature. The kinetics of the hydroxylation of benzene to phenol has shown that the catalyst dose was highly affected reaction rate. The Arrhenius relationship was applied to determine the activation energy of the reaction to be 25.98 kJ/Mol.