Study Of Novel CuCo Catalysts For Higher Alcohols Synthesis From CO Hydrogenation

Catalytic conversion of syngas to higher alcohols is generally recognized as a promising route for providing clean fuels and chemical feedstocks in view of environmental protection and resources utilization.A series of CuCo/CNTs-SiO2 catalysts have been prepared and characterized through FTIR, SEM, TEM, XRD, H2-TPR measurements. The catalyst has been evaluated in a fixed bed reactor for the conversion of syngas to higher alcohols and compared with that of the CNTs-free counterpart (CuCo/SiO2). Appropriate incorporation of a minor amount of Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into CuCo/SiO2 led to a significant increase in CO conversion and selectivity for the higher alcohols. Under the reaction conditions of 5.0MPa,573K and H2/CO=1, the observed space-time-yield of total (C1-5) alcohols reaches 213.02g·(kg·h)-1 with CO conversion of 34.76% over the CuCo/SiO2-7%CNTs catalyst.Addition of pyrogallic acid to CuCo/SiO2-7%CNTs results in a remarkable increase of CO conversion under the conditions mentioned above, and the crystallize size of catalysts is smaller than before. Addition of potassium as a promoter, however, the conversion rate of H2 and CO is inhibited. Moreover, the promoter of potassium enhances the ability of chain propagation of catalyst with higher selectivity to C2+OH. When the calcinations temperature is 400℃, the catalyst turned into a special phase, which has a good selectivity to higher alcohols, and the highest yield of higher alcohols is 249.57g·(kg·h)-1.