Although photooxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde
in aqueous
solution is an important chemical process, its selectivity cannot
be readily controlled due to the overoxidation of benzaldehyde. In
this study, a series of Bi–Mo/CN photocatalysts are synthesized,
and their reactivity in photooxidation of benzyl alcohol under visible
light is compared. Bi–Mo/CN-2 exhibits high photocatalytic
reactivity in the conversion of benzyl alcohol (51%) with a high selectivity
toward benzaldehyde of 99.9%. In this process, the formed Bi–OO•
and Bi–OOH selectively oxidize benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde
via the H-abstraction pathway after O2 is photoreduced
on Bi–Mo/CN, accompanied by the formation of H2O2. Meanwhile, the doped Mo utilizes the produced H2O2 or Bi–OOH to produce Mo–O2 peroxo, which not only contributes to the selective oxidation
of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde but also effectively prevents overoxidation
of benzaldehyde. This work provides new insight into designing novel
photocatalysts for selective oxidation of organic substrates.