Highly dispersed Fe in P dopped N-C for the catalytic peroxidation of 1,3-diisopropylbenzene with molecular oxygen

The decomposition of 1,3-diisopropylbenzene dihydroperoxide (DHP) obtained by the catalytic oxidation of 1,3-diisopropylbenzene (DIPB) is known as the main industrial process to produce resorcinol. A new catalyst of highly dispersed Fe in P-doped N-C (Fe-N/P-C) was synthesized using a ligand-assisted method, and was applied for the peroxidation of DIPB. SEM, TEM and HAADF-STEM revealed that Fe is uniformly dispersed on N/P-C. XRD, Raman spectra, N₂ adsorption/desorption, XPS and O₂-TPD showed that doping of P species in N-C leads to form more mesopore and increases the disorder degree, providing more active sites for the activation of tertiary C-H bonds in DIPB. The conversion of DIPB was 97.8 % and the yield of DHP was 67.2 % under mass of Fe-N/P-C to DIPB was 1.0, reaction temperature was 90°C, oxygen flow rate was 100 mL/min, and reaction time was 8 h. The investigation of radical quenching and mass spectrometry suggested that the increased oxidation rate is attributed to the involvement of Fe-N/P-C in both chain initiation and chain propagation.