Dehydration of glycerol to acetol on copper-containing catalysts
摘要
The article presents the results of catalytic tests of copper-containing catalysts in the process of liquid-phase dehydration of glycerol to acetol. Copper-containing systems were obtained by various methods, including ion exchange, coprecipitation, thermal decomposition and reduction of the corresponding salts. All the catalysts were characterized by IR, SEM, EDS and BET surface area. The conversion of glycerol to acetol was carried out by reactive distillation in a batch reactor. The highest conversion of glycerol of 94% with a selectivity of acetol formation of 42% was achieved in the presence of 5 wt% Cu2O for 6 h at 240 ℃ and a vacuum of 2.9 kPa. The distilled liquid product was analyzed by HPLC, GC and GC–MS. The surface acidity of the catalyst was evaluated by NH3-TPD. The change in catalytic activity for acetol does not correlate with the decrease in acidity in the series: Cu2O/Al2O3 → CuO → Cu → Cu2O and can be explained by the HSAB theory. Cu2O activity decreases during the recycler, which can be explained by Cu2O transformation into Cu° (detected by XRD method), sintering of catalyst particles and tarring of catalyst surface caused by resin products (detected by BET surface area).