Amino-cobalt(II)phthalocyanine supported on silica chloride as an efficient and reusable heterogeneous photocatalyst for oxidation of alcohols

The selective photocatalytic oxidation of alcohols is considered as a valuable process in order to produce aldehydes and ketones. In the present study, novel heterogeneous and recoverable cobalt (II) phthalocyanine (CoPc) was designed and synthesized through a covalent binding between an amino-cobalt (II) phthalocyanine on the surface of silica, and named as TACoPc/Si-Cl. This catalyst was fully characterized using IR, X-ray diffraction patterns (XRD), Scanning electron microscope (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), element analysis (CHN), and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV/Vis). Various reaction parameters such as catalyst amount, temperature, time, solvent and amount of oxidant were investigated in the oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols to the corresponding carbonyl compounds. The desired products were obtained with acceptable efficiency and selectivity of over 98%, under visible light irradiation conditions. The supported catalyst exhibited a higher reactivity than the unsupported and after the reaction comes off easily and reusable. The recovered catalyst was reused six times. The obtained results show that the stability, efficiency and selectivity of described catalyst have not changed much compared to the fresh catalyst.