Photocatalytic alcohol oxidation followed by ATR-IR spectroscopy and online mass spectrometry

The selective oxidation of hydrocarbons offers convenient synthetic routes for specialty chemicals, but also for widely used basic chemicals such as alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, epoxides or organic acids. Currently, the oxidation of alcohols is performed by metal oxides, which are hardly recyclable, or by organic oxidizing agents, which produce byproducts that are toxic or must be recycled.[1] A new approach is the use of air or pure O2 in combination with a heterogeneous catalyst, which offers an environmentally friendly and also cost-efficient alternative to the established processes.[1] However, the use of air or O2 has also disadvantages, as it often leads to total oxidation. To tune the selectivity, several materials like Au/TiO2 or Au/SiO2 have been largely investigated for gas-phase processes.