Boosted Activity for Toluene Selective Photooxidation over Fe-Doped Bi 2 WO 6

Selective photooxidation of toluene to benzaldehyde using O 2 as an oxidant has the advantages of mild reaction conditions and excellent atomic economy, but it often suffers from low conversion efficiency. To promote the photooxidation process, we fabricated iron-doped Bi 2 WO 6 microflowers by a simple hydrothermal method to boost the formation of oxygen vacancies. The rich presence of oxygen vacancies not only accelerates the separation of photogenerated charge carriers but also enhances O 2 activation for ·O 2 – generation. Besides the slight improvement of Bi 2 WO 6 stability, the Fe-doped Bi 2 WO 6 displays enhanced activity and selectivity for benzaldehyde generation from toluene under visible light. This work illustrates a simple strategy for successful modulation of Bi 2 WO 6 for improved performance in the photocatalytic selective oxidation processes.