Mechanochemical NaCl–Mediated Synthesis of Porous Cu_xMo_1–xO_y Catalyst for Knoevenagel Condensation

The development of a sustainable strategy for directing porosity into molybdate catalyst is interesting. Herein, a mechanochemical method was proposed to fabricate porous copper molybdate. By using NaCl as an easily removable and recyclable template, the obtained copper molybdate afforded a specific surface area of ∼134 m²/g, which was higher than that of control samples via traditional methods, such as combustion-like methods (5 m²/g), hydrothermal methods (<1 m²/g), and coprecipitation methods (11 m²/g). Moreover, the obtained Cu_xMo_1–xO_y exhibited good catalytic performance for the Knoevenagel condensation reaction.