Effect of Post‐Treatment on Structure and Catalytic Activity of CuCo‐based Materials for Glycerol Oxidation

A series of CuCo-based materials prepared by co-precipitation with varied Co/Cu ratios and different post-treatments were applied in the selective oxidation of glycerol in the aqueous phase under basic conditions. The influence of the post-treatment on the structure of the materials and the catalytic performance was investigated in detail. As-prepared materials without calcination and materials calcined under air with subsequent reduction under ethanol/N2 gas stream showed higher conversion of glycerol compared to samples solely calcined under air or to samples calcined under air with subsequent reduction under H2/Ar gas stream. The main products identified in the liquid phase were glyceric, glycolic, and formic acids. Systematic catalytic studies for differently prepared samples with varied Cu content and subsequent characterization of the materials by N2 physisorption, XRD, TEM, and EDX allowed for the identification of CoO(OH) in contact with CuO as the potentially active phases.