Catalytic aerobic oxidation of lignin-based vanillyl alcohol over LaFeO3 perovskite towards vanillin production: Relationships between the activity and acid-base property as well as oxygen vacancy

Developing high-performance acid-base catalysis over perovskite for alcohol aerobic oxidation has received increasing attention, but the fundamental understanding of its surface acid-base property and performance relationship remains largely unknown. Accordingly, a series of LaFeO3 perovskites were fabricated via modified Pechini approach with the addition of different chelating agents to modulate their respective acid-base amount and oxygen vacancy concentration, which subsequently were employed in the aerobic oxidation of vanillyl alcohol (a lignin model), to generate vanillin for elucidating the relationships between the catalytic activity of LaFeO3 perovskite and its acid-base property as well as oxygen vacancy. The results demonstrated that existence of non-linear relationships between the vanillin yield and the acid-base amount as well as oxygen vacancy concentration of LaFeO3 catalyst. Moreover, neither acid-base sites nor oxygen vacancies were the solely factors affecting the activity of LaFeO3 perovskite towards vanillyl alcohol oxidation for vanillin production. Mechanism studies proclaimed that the reactive oxygen species derived from the adsorption of molecule oxygen on oxygen vacancies generated by anion defects combing with Lewis acid sites (Fe3+/Fe2+) to yield FeOx active pairs, which jointly dominated the pathway for vanillyl alcohol oxidation to produce vanillin. Overall, this work offers guidance for designing effective perovskite-based catalysts for lignin conversion to produce value-added chemicals by selectively modulating its acid-base property and oxygen vacancy.