Scaled-up, selective and green synthesis of sulfoxides under mild conditions using (Ce^III-Mo^VI)O_x/aniline hybrid rods as an efficient catalyst

A novel hybrid material, (Ce^III-Mo^VI)O_x/aniline, with rod-like morphology is synthesized through a wet chemical method using Mo₃O₁₀(C₆H₅NH₃)₂.2H₂O nanowires as precursor. The synthesized materials are characterized by XRD, XPS, SEM, TEM, FTIR, Raman, UV–Vis, TGA, and elemental analysis. Also, their catalytic activities as a hybrid catalyst are tested in the selective oxidation of sulfides using hydrogen peroxide as a green oxidant. The proposed novel hybrid catalyst shows an excellent performance under green conditions at mild temperature. Furthermore, the scalability of the oxidation reaction is shown by making multi-gram quantities at optimized conditions.