Mno2 Nanoparticles Supported on Cnts for Cumene Oxidation : Synergistic Effect and Kinetic Modelling

Synergistic effects between the carbon materials and metal oxides usually are considered as the significant factor in the selective oxidation of hydrocarbons. In current study, MnO 2 /CNTs catalysts were prepared under mild condition and applied in the cumene oxidation. As high as 73.44% cumene conversion with a specific activity (1.56 mmol/m 2 /h and 345.99 mmol/g/h) were obtained over 21.23-MnO 2 /CNTs, which is much higher than those of CNTs-catalysis and MnO 2 -catalysis systems. The decomposition of CHP, a key step for cumene oxidation, was proved to be facilitated by the interaction between MnO 2 nanoparticles and CNTs, which also confirmed from the DFT calculations. These results demonstrated that the synergistic effect between MnO 2 nanoparticles and CNTs would greatly enhance the activity and tune the distribution of products selectivity. The kinetic modeling study in this work further revealed that the interactions between MnO 2 nanoparticles and CNTs would accelerate all the elementary steps, especially, the homolytic cleavage of CHP. The reaction rate constant ( k 80 = 9 h -1 ) for 21.23-MnO 2 /CNTs is 450-folds of CNTs ( k 80 = 0.02 h -1 ). Moreover, the concentration distributions of AP and PP were well illustrated from the kinetic study