Catalyst Development Of One-pot Process From Coconut Oil To Fatty Alcohols Without Extraneous Hydrogen

Fatty alcohols are widely used as important intermediates in surfactants,detergents,lubricants,cosmetics,pharmaceuticals and personal care products in industrial and food fields.There are many drawbacks in the traditional two-step process of the synthesis of fatty alcohols using natural oil as raw material,such as complicated equipments,complex operation,harsh reaction conditions and,the last but not least problem,large amount of hydrogen.To figure out these disadvantages,we propose a brand new route to produce fatty alcohols from oils in methanol without extraneous hydrogen as a one-pot approach.We started out here from methanol decomposition by a Cu-based catalyst?prepared by deposition-precipitation method with ammonia as precipitant?,which could efficiently promote the production of in-situ hydrogen from methanol.Through the characterizations of catalysts and analysis of gas and liquid products,we understood the effects of supports and reaction temperature on the dehydrogenation of methanol.By analyzing gas products,the purity of hydrogen was about 87%,while the amount of CO,the side product,was too few to poison the metal active sites?only 12%?.After optimizing Cu/SiO₂ catalyst by hydrothermal method,we tested its activity in coupling the reactions of methanol decomposition and fatty acid methyl esters?FAMEs?hydrogenation,and confirmed the internal transfer mechanism of in-situ hydrogen.Finally,we successfully realized the one-pot process of fatty alcohols production by oil and methanol without the presence of extra hydrogen.We confirmed the synergistic effect of Cu2O and CuO could catalyze methanol decomposition and the sole CuO was the active site of selective hydrogenation.Combined the data of gas and liquid productsm,we also come up with reasonable catalytic paths of this reaction.In short,we developed a new one-pot method of producing fatty alcohols from natural oil by using Cu/SiO₂ catalyst.This simple and efficient process is highly atom economic,and the high-quality product is also clean and green.