India develops new catalysts to turn oil waste into useful materials

with a new catalyst, Indian researchers have successfully converted oil waste toluene into benzoic acid, which can be used as a food preservative and a drug against fungal and bacterial infectionsThe paper was published online in the Dutch journal Applied Catalytic B: Environmentin general, complex organic reactions use organic solvents, which makes the reaction more expensive and produces toxic wasteUnlike previous practice, researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology used water as a solvent and used a green oxidant called hydrobutyl hydrogen peroxide (TBHP) to convert tolueneToluene is usually produced with four products when oxidized, but only benzoic acid is produced with a new bisphenol-assisted platinum nanocatalystAccording to the researchers, platinum nanoparticles are usually unstable in nature because they tend to cluster into large particles and their catalytic activity decreasesThe researchers used bisphenol as a stabilizer to bind to platinum nanoparticles to prevent the concentration of platinum nanoparticles and make them easy to operateExperiments show that the particle size does not change after the new catalyst is reused 5 timesresearchers also found that using TBHP alone as an oxidant to convert toluene is larger, four TBHP can convert a toluene, not cost-effectiveSo they also use molecular oxygen as an oxidant, which produces only two TCPs for a serving of toluene, which not only helps to reduce costs, but also increases the yield of benzoic acid