Eight-membered ring petal-shaped V8 cluster: An efficient heterogeneous catalyst for selective sulfur oxidation

An eight-membered ring petal-shaped cluster [V8ⅣO8(CH3O)16(C2O4)](C6NH16)2(CH3OH)2 (V8) has been successfully designed and synthesized via hydrothermal method. Structure analysis revealed that each vanadium atom was in an octahedral geometrical configuration six-coordinated, two adjacent vanadium atoms were linked by oxygen atoms on oxalic acid to form a ring. The selective sulfur oxidation experiments reveal that V8 had good catalytic activity under mild conditions, and the removal rate of phenyl sulfide was >99% within 4 h at 40 °C. In addition, the open aperture Z-scan test of V8 was carried out and found that V8 also has latent application value as nonlinear optical (NLO) material.