Preparation of gold containing particles using different suspension agents for the selective oxidation of glycerol
Résumé
Environment friendly chemistry plays an important role in the design of novel catalysts. One of the ways to satisfy the requirements for this purpose such as decrease of waste, use of materials with low toxicity, reduction of assistant materials or minimum energy consumption, is the use of nanoreactors or microreactors. In this sense, microencapsulation method has been recently recognized as an useful alternative strategy to immobilize metal catalyst onto polymers. The microencapsulation refers to the incorporation of an active substance in a shell or a matrix of a carrier component. The resulting catalysts can be separated from a reaction mixture by simple filtration and recycled, which makes them suitable from green chemistry. Gold based catalysts have been shown to be active in the liquid phase selective oxidation of glycerol, reaction of high industrial interest due to the increasing expansion of the biodiesel production. The microencapsulation of gold particles could offer a solution to problems associated with catalytic activity, selectivity and stability. Thus, the aim of this work was to study the effect of different suspension agents for the preparation of poly(urea-formaldehyde) microparticles containing gold. Furthermore, the influence of the morphological and physical properties of resulted microparticles for the oxidation of glycerol reaction was also evaluated.