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Published on: May 13, 2013
Efficient Aerobic Oxidation of Glucose to Gluconic Acid over Activated Carbon-Supported Gold Clusters
Chao Liu1, Junying Zhang1, Jiahui Huang1
1Gold Catalysis Research Centre, State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, 116023, P. R. China.
Abstract:
The catalytic performance of the atomically precise gold cluster-Au38 (PET)24 (PET=2-phenylethanethiolate), immobilized on activated carbon (AC), was investigated for the aerobic oxidation of glucose to gluconic acid. The Au38 (PET)24 /AC-120 catalysts, annealed at 120 °C in air, exhibited high catalytic activity and significantly better performance than the corresponding catalysts Au38 /AC-150 and Au38 /AC-300 (treated at 150 and 300 °C to remove the protecting thiolate ligands). The high activity of the robust Au cluster was a result of the partial ligand removal, providing catalytically active sites, which were evidenced by TEM, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and Fourier-transform IR spectroscopy. Au38 (PET)24 /AC-120 also showed excellent recyclability (up to seven cycles). The turnover frequency for the Au38 (PET)24 /AC-120 catalyst was 5440 h-1 , which is higher than for the Pd/AC, Pd-Bi/AC, and Au/AC under identical reaction conditions. This new ultra-small gold nanomaterial is expected to find wide application in other catalytic oxidations.
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