Synthesis of cobalt doped mesoporous silica by using the rice husks as both silicon source and template with its catalytic oxidation of 2-methyl pyridine

¹ Faculty of Metallurgical and Energy Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, 650093, P. R. China
² College of Chemistry and Environmental Science, Qujing Nomal University, Qujing, P. R. China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Pressure Hydrometallurgical Technology of Associated Nonferrous Metal Resources, Kunming Metallurgical Research Intitute, Kunming, 650503, P. R. China;

^* Corresponding author: miaoyingchun1979@126.com

Abstract

Cobalt doped mesoporous silica (Co-SiO2) was prepared using the rice husks as both silicon source and template. Structural characterization of the catalysts was done by various techniques, such as Xray diffraction, FT-IR, N2 adsorption/desorption, and scanning electron microscopy. Co-SiO2 was used as a catalyst for the oxidation of 2-methyl pyridine and exhibited high substrate conversion (94.6%) and good product (2-pyridinecarboxylic acid) selectivity (92.4%). It even exhibited higher selectivity than Co-MTiO2, Co-MCM-41, Co-SBA-15. Fast hot catalyst filtration experiment proved that the catalyst acted as a heterogeneous one and it can be reused with almost the same activity.