Kinetics research of phenol hydroxylation on Fe-Cu catalyst

Phenol hydroxylation with aqueous H₂O₂ was known as one of the most effective manufactures in the world. With Fe-Cu or Fe-Cu/Al₂O₃ metallic acid salts as catalyst and in gradientless reactor, phenol hydroxylation reaction kinetics process was investigated by changing the factors of reaction temperature, phenol/H₂O₂ molar ratio and phenol initial mass fraction. It was shown that under the same value of M/F_A0(M-the mass of catalyst; F_A0-the mass flow rate of critical component A of reactant at the inlet of reactor), phenol conversion was increased but dihydroxybenzene total selectivity went down with the temperature rise, H₂O₂/phenol molar ratio and phenol initial mass fraction increasing. Therefore, the reaction mechanism of phenol/H₂O₂ hydroxylation over Fe-Cu or Fe-Cu/Al₂O₃ was purposed, its reaction kinetics equation and the relative kinetics parameters were also calculated.