Epoxidation of Styrene over Rice derived Carbon as support for MgO prepared via in-situ transformation technique: Characterization and evaluation

With a view to develop eco-friendly and metal-free catalysts, herein we report MgO-rice derived carbon composite for epoxidation of styrene to styrene epoxide. MgO-C catalysts prepared via in situ transformation technique are characterized by powder XRD, BET-surface area, Raman spectroscopy, CO 2 -TPD, CHNS analysis and TGA techniques. Under optimized reaction conditions, MgO-C0.5 catalyst efficiently catalyzed the reaction with 84% conversion of styrene yielding 82% selectivity to styrene epoxide. The characterization results suggest that the catalytic activity is attributed to the presence of well dispersed accessible basic sites obtained through in situ dispersion of MgO over rice derived carbon. MgO-C0.5 catalyst is recyclable up to four cycles without significant loss in the activity and selectivity.