Achieving high-performance for catalytic epoxidation of styrene with uniform magnetically separable CoFe2O4 nanoparticles

Abstract Developing catalysts with unique compositional and structural characteristics, high cost-efficiency, and preferable catalytic performance are still an ongoing task for the selective oxidation of alkenes. Herein, we report the facile construction of uniform magnetically separable CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles, which can function as an efficient and robust catalyst for the selective epoxidation of styrene with tert-butyl hydroperoxide as the oxidant. This bimetallic catalyst significantly outperformed its monometallic counterparts with respect to Co 3 O 4 flakes and Fe 2 O 3 rods both in terms of total activity and epoxide production. In the presence of CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles as the catalyst, the yield of styrene oxide (SO) can achieve 79.7% with a total styrene conversion of 96.4% and a selectivity of 82.7% to SO under the optimal reaction condition. In addition, the activation energy was measured, and a plausible reaction mechanism was proposed. The outstanding catalytic performance of the CoFe 2 O 4 catalyst can be ascribed to the synergistic effects regarding the abundant surface metal redox couples induced by the bimetallic nature and the mesoporous structure with high surface area.