Deciphering the mass transfer and diffusion behavior in the oxidation of fatty alcohols to fatty acids over Pt/MCM-41

Abstract

Selective oxidation of long-chain fatty alcohols into acids is an important value-added reaction. However, exploring the basic catalytic steps over Pt-based catalysts throughout the entire oxidation process is still ambiguous. In this work, we systematically investigated the synergistic mechanisms of adsorption, reaction, and diffusion over Pt/MCM-41 for normal/isomeric alcohols oxidation into acids via molecular dynamics, in-situ characterization, and experiments. Specifically, diffusion coefficients decrease with the increase of the molecular weight of normal molecules due to the increased van der Waals forces, while isomeric alcohols exhibit more complex patterns originated from the steric hindrance between Pt particles and mesopores. To quantitatively describe this pattern, a cluster size descriptor of $d_{\mathrm{Pt}}^{0.75}\times d_{\mathrm{Pore}}^{0.25}$ was defined. Notably, 2-ethylhexanol exhibits the best self-diffusion coefficients at the descriptor value of 3.14. Correspondingly, the oxidation of 2-ethylhexanol to 2-ethylhexanoic acid displays highest reaction conversion (68.67 %) and selectivity (65.59 %).