Photocatalytic aerobic oxidation of toluene and its derivatives to aldehydes on Pd/Bi 2 WO 6

The selective oxidation of toluene and its derivatives is extremely important in the chemical industry. The use of photocatalysis in organic synthesis has attracted considerable attention among synthetic chemists because of its “green” environmental characteristics. In this study, nanoscale Bi2WO6 with a flower-like morphology was found to be a highly efficient photocatalyst in the catalytic oxidation of toluene and its derivatives using O2 as the oxidant. The loading of Pd nanoparticles as a cocatalyst onto the flower-like Bi2WO6 was found to produce a significant enhancement in the catalytic activity. Mechanistic investigation showed that the superior performance of Pd/Bi2WO6 could be attributed to the improvement of both the reductive and oxidative abilities of Bi2WO6 by the loading of the cocatalyst.