Cyclohexane Oxidation: Synthesis of Iron (III)-Amino Acid and Amino Acid Schiff Base Complexes and Their Catalytic Activity Evaluation

The amino acids, alanine (Ala) and phenyl alanine (Phe) and their Schiff bases (Ala-Sal), (Phe-Sal) were complexed with iron [III] metal. The complexes (Fe-Ala), (Fe-Phe) and Schiff bases complexes (Fe-Ala-Sal) and (Fe-Phe-Sal) were characterized by the UV, IR, NMR and SEM. The catalytic performance of prepared complexes were investigated by using various reaction conditions, such as temperature, pressure, amount of catalyst, time, oxidant to substrate ratio in order to find out the optimum conditions for the oxidation reaction of cyclohexane. The selective oxidation of cyclohexane to cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol (KA-oil) by various oxidants such as aqueous H2O2, Na2O2, KIO4 and TBHP in presence of acetonitrile and without solvent system was investigated. Also, the amino acid Schiff base iron complexes were supported on zeolite “Y” and intercalated on montmorillonite clay to enhance their catalytic activity. The supported catalysts were also characterized by IR and Powder X-Ray diffraction XRD studies before their application to cyclohexane oxidation. The conversion of cyclohexane was up to 13% with the selectivity of cyclohexanone.