Selective Liquid Phase Ammoxidation of Aromatic Aldehydes to Aromatic Nitriles with VPO Titania Heterogeneous Catalysts in Air

Preparation of 2-Chlorobenzonitrile, and benzonitrile are reported here from the corresponding 2-Chlorobenzaldehyde and benzaldehyde by the reaction of ammonium hydroxide/VPO titania, VPO bulk (ammonium metavanadate) VPO supported by CuCr, catalyst/air system in methanol. All these catalysts showed better conversions with reasonable selectivity to aromatic nitriles shown in the table 2. The results prove that BET surface area results show VPO is present on the catalysts surface which has high surface area, attributed to increase in activity of the catalysts.