Promoting effect of CeO2 on cyclohexanol conversion over CeO2-ZnO mixed oxide materials prepared by amorphous citrate process

CeO2-ZnO materials were prepared by amorphous citrate process and characterized by TGA, XRD, UV-DRS and surface area measurements. TGA showed that the citrate precursors decompose in the range 350–550°C producing CeO2-containing catalytic materials. XRD and DRS results indicated the formation of well-dispersed interstitialZn xCe4+ 1−2x Ce3+ 2x O2 solid solution on ZnO matrix. Addition of CeO2 to ZnO produced high surface area mixed oxide materials in citrate method. Cyclohexanol conversion reaction was carried out on these catalytic materials to investigate the effect of rare earth oxide on the activity and selectivity. It was found that CeO2 promotes the activity of ZnO without affecting the selectivity to cyclohexanone significantly. The factors such as reaction temperature and WHSV have turned out to be important for cyclohexanol conversion over CeO2-containing ZnO catalyst materials.