Efficient Photo-Assisted Thermal Selective Oxidation of Toluene Using N-Doped TiO(2)

[Image: see text] Selective oxidation of toluene is a key reaction to produce high value-added products but remains a big challenge. In this study, we introduce a nitrogen-doped TiO(2) (N-TiO(2)) catalyst to create more Ti(3+) and oxygen vacancy (O(V)), which act as active sites for selective oxidation of toluene via activating O(2) to superoxide radical (•O(2)(–)). Interestingly, the resulting N-TiO(2)-2 exhibited an outstanding photo-assisted thermal performance with a product yield of 209.6 mmol·g(cat)(–1) and a toluene conversion of 10960.0 μmol·g(cat)(–1)·h(–1), which are 1.6 and 1.8 times greater than those obtained under thermal catalysis. We showed that the enhanced performance under photo-assisted thermal catalysis was attributed to more active species generation by making full use of photogenerated carriers. Our work suggests a viewpoint to apply a noble-metal-free TiO(2) system in the selective oxidation of toluene under solvent-free conditions.