Synthesis Of Fatty Alcohol Form Fatty Acid Methyl Ester Over Thermostatic Catalyst

Fatty alcohol is the main raw material to produce plasticizers, detergents,surfactants and other fine chemicals which have an important role in the nationaleconomy. In this paper, methyl oleate ester was selected as a model reaction forproduce fatty alcohol catalysted by copper-chromium catalyst or thermoregulatedtransfer catalyst in order to solve the drawbacks of the heterogeneous catalysis, such asthe existence of mass transfer and diffusion resistance, recycling and re-use problemsand other issues.The preparation of fatty alcohol was studied in conventional catalytic system. Theresults showed that Cu-Cr catalytic system had a good catalytic performance. Theoptimum conditions were obtained such as fatty acid methyl ester2.5g, catalystdosage37.5mg, reaction temperature230℃, reaction time6h, and hydrogen pressure6MPa. Under the above conditions, the hydroxyl value of the fatty alcohol was186mgKOH/g, and iodine value was22I2g/100g. The reusability of the catalyst wasexamined, and its catalytic performance was little decrease when it was reused for5times because of coking.Some novel temperature control imidazole ionic liquids (ILPEG-400, ILPEG-600,ILPEG-750and ILPEG-1000) were synthesized with the structure polyethylene glycol chainwhich had a good stability for the nanoparticle and thermoregulated characteristics.The characterized results showed that the synthesized compound is the targetcompound. Then the ionic liquids were used to form ionic liquid/organic two-phasecatalytic system containing Pd nanoparticles by hydrogenation reaction. The results showed that the size of Pd nanoparticles metal particle was nearly3nm with a normaldistribution. Furthermore, the catalystic system had a good thermoregulatedcharacteristics.The hydrogenation reaction of methyl oleate ester was studied in thethermoregulated catalytic system. It was found that the catalytic system with Pdnanoparticles stabilized ionic liquid ILPEG-600exhibited a high catalytic activity andstability. The optimum conditions were obtained as follow: The fatty acid methyl ester2.5g, catalyst dosage1.0g, n-heptane1.2g, toluene1.0g, reaction temperature210℃,reaction time4h, and hydrogen pressure6MPa. Under the above conditions, thehydroxyl value of the production was156mgKOH/g, and iodine value was20I2g/100g. The catalyst was reused for five times with a little decrease in its catalyticperformance because of agglomeration of nanoparticles.In summary, the thermoregulated catalytic system overcame some problems of thetraditional copper-chromium catalyst, the integration of reaction-separation wasrealized. However, the synthesis of thermoregulated ionic liquid with good stability fornanoparticles was the key for the reusability of the catalyst. The study providesguidance for the thermoregulated catalytic system to be used in these model reactions.