We report the oxidation of propane under mild aqueous conditions using H2O2 as the oxidant. Various reaction conditions have been studied with a view to optimising the conversion of propane in the presence of a Fe/ZSM-5 (30) catalyst. Process optimisation afforded 52% propane conversion in 0.5 h at a temperature of 70 °C. C3 products are shown to undergo sequential catalytic C–C scission and oxidation reactions in the presence of the catalysts, yielding C2 and C1 products. This leads to an inverse relationship between propane conversion and reaction selectivity. Addition of Cu to Fe/ZSM-5 (30) shifted reaction selectivity towards propene (≤34%) with increasing conversion.
