An alternative route for the preparation of phenol: Decomposition of cyclohexylbenzene-1-hydroperoxide

In this work, a HPW/ZSM-5 catalyst was prepared by impregnating phosphotungstic acid (HPW) with carrier ZSM-5 zeolite and characterized by XRD, SEM, N 2 adsorption/desorption isotherm, NH 3 -TPD, and FT-IR techniques. The catalytic performance of HPW/ZSM-5 was investigated by using the decomposition reaction of cyclohexylbenzene-1-hydroperoxide (CHBHP) to phenol and cyclohexanone. The conversion rate of CHBHP was up to 97.28%. In addition, the reusability test exhibited that the high durability HPW/ZSM-5 as the conversion rate of CHBHP only decreased by 3.11% after five runs. The kinetic study of the decomposition reaction indicated it was a primary reaction. The apparent activation energy of the decomposition reaction was 102.39 kJ·mol –1 in the temperature range of 45–60℃. All results indicate that the HPW/ZSM-5 catalyst has good performance and promising applications in acid catalyzed organic chemistry.