Selective Oxidation of Hydrocarbon with NHPI/Facet-Mediated α-Fe2O3 under the Visible-light at Ambient Temperature

Selective oxidation of hydrocarbon under mild conditions is one of scientific challenges. In the present work, facet effect was utilized to design an efficient catalytic system of N -hydroxyphthalimide (NHPI) and specific α-Fe 2 O 3 with different preferential crystal facets. Higher ratio of crystalline facet {110}/{104} was identified as a key factor to facilitate the interaction between NHPI molecules and surface of α-Fe 2 O 3 , then realize a higher catalytic activity. Being photo-irradiated with the blue light (455   nm, 3   W) at ambient temperature for 4   h, conversion of 92.2% was obtained for the selective oxidation of ethylbenzene with α-Fe 2 O 3 -T100 that owns more preferential crystalline facets {110}, which is about 1.8 times as high as that (51.0%) being obtained with commercial C-α-Fe 2 O 3 -{104}. The present efficient catalytic system also exhibited good universality for the selective oxidation of a series of other hydrocarbons.