Valorization of Citrus Waste: Use in Catalysis for the Oxidation of Sulfides

P.G. VÁZQUEZ; V. PALERMO; M.B. COLOMBO MIGLIORERO; G.P. ROMANELLI

Journal of Renewable Materials

Scrivener Publishing

Año: 2017

2164-6325

The utilization and valorization of industrial waste is an effective strategy for environmental protection. Sincethe juice industry generates a huge amount of citrus waste, we studied the application of thermally treatedorange peel in catalysis. On the other hand, Keggin heteropolyacids are excellent oxidant catalysts used as areplacement for conventional oxidants; however, their solubility in polar solvents and the low specific arealimit their use as heterogeneous catalysts. The utilization of treated orange peel as heteropolyacid supportfor the selective oxidation of sulfides is presented here. Firstly, orange peel was thermally treated, and thenit was incorporated with heteropolyacids (PMo) during the silica synthesis by the sol-gel method. Therefore,SiO2-PMo, SiO2-OP100-PMo, and SiO2-OP200-PMo were obtained, characterized by FTIR, SBET, XRD, andpotentiometric titration, and were tested as heterogeneous catalysts in the selective oxidation of sulfide tosulfoxide in a greener process: H2O2 as oxidant and ethanol as solvent, at 25 °C.