Kinetics and reaction mechanism of phenol hydroxylation catalyzed by La-Cu4FeAlCO3

The present work synthesizes La-Cu₄FeAICO₃ catalyst under microwave irradiation and characterizes its structure using XRD and IR techniques. The results show that the obtained La-Cu₄FeAICO₃ has a hydrotalcite structure. In the phenol hydroxylation with H₂O₂ catalyzed by La-Cu₄FeAICO₃, the effects of reaction time and phenol/H₂O₂ molar ratio on the phenol hydroxylation, and relationships between the initial hydroxylation rate with concentration of the catalyst, phenol, H₂O₂ and reaction temperature are also investigated in details. It is shown the phenol conversion can reach 50.09% (mol percent) in the phenol hydroxylation catalyzed by La-Cu₄FeAICO₃, under the reaction conditions of the molar ratio of phenol/H₂O₂1/2, the amount ratio of phenol/catalyst 20, reaction temperature 343 K, reaction time 120 min, 10 ml_ distilled water as solvent. Moreover, a kinetic equation of v = k[La-Cu₄FeAlCO₃][C₆H₅OH][H₂O₂]. and the activation energy of E _a=58.37 kJ/mol are obtained according to the kinetic studies. Due to the fact that the HO-Cu⁺-OH species are detected in La-Cu₄FeAICO₃/H₂O₂ system by XPS, the new mechanism about the generation of hydroxyl free radicals in the phenol hydroxylation is proposed, which is supposed that HO-Cu⁺-OH species are transition state in this reaction.