Catalysis of Organic..

94Oxidation with Microchannel Immobilized HomogeneousThermal StabilityIonic liquids are characterized by low vapor pressure, permitting operation in a widetemperature range without causing detrimental effect to the catalyst or the ionicliquid. All of Co(II)-IL/Support catalysts were characterized by TGA. Figure 2illustrates that the novel catalyst system was stable up to almost 360 o C. This hasallowed us to utilize this catalyst system for applications other than just hydrocarbonoxidation reactions.Figure 2. TGA analysis of supported Co(II)-ionic liquid catalysts (thermal stabilityof ionic liquid phase).Retention of Homogeneous Property in Ionic LiquidImmobilization of homogeneous catalysts has been practiced by many chemicalresearchers. Often, after immobilization, the normally expected homogeneousbehavior diminishes or largely disappears and heterogeneous characteristicspredominate. One problem encountered in using heterogeneous catalysts to replacehomogeneous is selectivity. At the best, the performance of heterogeneous catalystscan only approximate those of their homogeneous counterparts. In contrast, when an