Facile Synthesis of Copper Containing Ordered Mesoporous Polymers via Aqueous Coordination Self-Assembly for Aerobic Oxidation of Alcohols

A simple aqueous coordination self-assembly route has been demonstrated for the synthesis of copper containing ordered mesoporous polymers with mimosa tannin as the precursor and triblock copolymer Pluronic F127 (EO ₁₀₆ PO ₇₀ EO ₁₀₆ ) as the template. The introduction of naturally occurring mimosa tannin in lieu of the toxic and costly synthetic precursors makes the aqueous coordination self-assembly strategy a greener and scalable approach for the soft-templating synthesis of ordered mesoporous polymers. Well-dispersed metallic copper nanoparticles were generated in situ without additional chemical reduction process. The synthesized copper containing catalysts with uniform mesopores (8-9 nm), high surface area (532 m ² /g), and large pore volume (0.65 cm ³ /g) exhibit high catalytic activity for the aerobic oxidation of both activated benzyl alcohol and nonactivated aliphatic and alicyclic alcohols. Under the optimized conditions, the conversions of benzyl alcohol, n-butanol, n-hexanol, n-octanol, cyclohexanol, and cyclooctanol with high selectivity to the corresponding aldehydes and ketones reached 86%, 64%, 56%, 56%, 84%, and 82%, respectively.