Study On The Vapor-Phase Synthesis Of N-Butylaniline Over Cu/SiO₂ Catalyst

N-butylaniline, which is an important raw organic material and fine chemical product, has many uses in the fields of industry, agriculture and medicine. There are many methods to produce N-butylaniline. However, from the industrial, environmental and economical points of view, the synthesis from aniline and 1-butanol seems to be one of the most promising routes. Because it is easy from the reactants to N-butylaniline and the raw materials are inexpensive, a low cost process on the industrial scale could be possible. Moreover it is a green chemistry route for producing N-butylaniline. In this dissertation, copper catalyst was used as the catalyst for the synthesis of N-butylaniline and it was investigated by means of some characterizations such as XRD, BET and TG. The main results are summarized as follows:1. Cu/SiO₂ catalyst prepared by incipient wetness method, temperature-programmed-calcination and in-situ reduction exhibited very high activity and selectivity. It was prepared easily as well as obtained repeatly.2. When Cu loading was 0.70 mmol/g-SiO₂ and the catalyst precursor was calcined at 500℃with temperature-programmed calcination method, the yield of N-butylaniline could be up to 96% at the reaction temperature of 280℃.3. The carbon-deposition could be efficiently decreased when hydrogen was added to the reaction system.4. Cu/SiO₂ catalyst with appropriate crystallinity of copper has high catalytic activity and selectivity. Too big or too small copper crystallinity couldn't favor to obtain the high yield of N-butylaniline.