Study On Catalyst For Ethyl Acetate Hydrogenation To Ethanol

Fuel ethanol is a clean energy, and it could be added to the gasoline, which could improve the anti-knock performance of gasoline and reduce the emission of pollutants. It conforms to the sustainable developmental strategy and also could be carried out as a measure to deal with the energy crisis, which had important economic value and strategic significance.Hydrogenation of ethyl acetate to ethanol has been proposed as a new technology for producing ethanol while the key is to look for efficient and cheap catalyst as well as optimal reaction condition. In this paper, CuO/ZnO/Al2O3 catalysts prepared from hydrotalcite-like precursors were synthesized by a co-precipitation method. The catalysts were tested for hydrogenation of ethyl acetate to ethanol and characterized by N2 adsorption, X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, N2O chemisorption, H2 temperature-programmed reduction and H2 temperature-programmed desorption techniques. The results showed that the catalysts modified by promoters had hydrotalcite-like precursors with high Cu exposed surface areas and good catalytic performance. For the Zn modified CuO/Al2O3 catalyst, when Zn:Al molar ratio was 1, the catalyst had the highest conversion of ethyl acetate and selectivity of ethanol. For CuOZnO/Al2O3 catalysts modified by different promoters including Mn, Co, Ni and Mg, the catalyst added Mn had the highest conversion of ethyl acetate and selectivity of ethanol. The results of catalysts with different Mn/Al molar ratio showed, when Mn:Al molar ratio was 0.6, the conversion of ethyl acetate and selectivity of ethanol reached 75.86% and 95.23%, respectively.