Highly efficient Co single-atom catalyst for epoxidation of plant oils

Epoxidation of bio-derived plant oils is a sustainable route to manufacturing plasticizers, additives in lubricants, and other chemicals. The traditional synthetic approaches suffer from the employment corrosive mineral acid or expensive peroxides (e.g., H2O2). In this work, we report epoxidation using O2 as terminal oxidant catalyzed by Co-N-C/SiO2 single-atom catalyst. dispersion cobalt confirmed high-angle annular dark field-STEM x-ray absorption fine structure techniques. methyl oleate under mild reaction conditions (35 °C, 0.1 MPa O2), 99% selectivity desired product achieved at full conversion. Even for crude oils, also effective good yields corresponding epoxides are obtained. addition, catalyst easily recovered can be reused five times without obvious decay catalytic activity/selectivity. A superoxide radical involved mechanism proposed on basis kinetic study EPR experiment.