Alkylbenzene Liquid Phase Catalytic Oxidation Reaction

In this paper, the reaction of liquid-phase oxidation of alkylbenzenes has been studied. p-tert-Butylbenzaldehyde and p-anisaldehyde were prepared by oxidation of the corresponding toluene derivatives over Co(OAc)2, Mn(OAc)2, Ce(N03)3 single or mixed in acetic acid. A series of influential factors were investigated, such as the temperature, the pressure and the reaction time, and the optimization of the reaction conditions were determined, which give 59.0% conversion with 76.1% selectivity for p-tert-Butylbenzaldehyde and 64.0% conversion with 86.1% selectivity for p-anisaldehyde Meanwhile alkoxy-or(aryloxy)benzoic acids were prepared by oxidation of the corresponding toluene derivatives in the presence of Co(OAc)2 at the low pressure, which give sufficiently high yields. For instance, p-tert-Butylbenzoic acid was obtained in 98.7% by the oxidation of p-tert-Butyltoluene.