Study On Hydrogenation Of Methyl Acetate To Ethanol Over Cu Based Catalyst

With global oil prices rising, fuel ethanol as an alternative energy will have broadpotential applications. The technology of hydrogenation of acetate ester to ethanol, asa new technology of producing ethanol, deserves more and more social’s attention.The catalytic performances of Cu based catalysts with varied MgO contents, Cucontents in the hydrogenation of methyl acetate to ethanol were studied. Then, thecatalytic performances of30%Cu/9MgO-SiO2with different kinds of promoters andcontents were studied. In addition, their process parameters were optimized. Thecatalytic test was carried out in a fixed-bed reactor under t=340℃, P=3MPa,LHSV=2h-1. The catalysts were characterized by N2adsorption-desorption, N2Ochemisorptions, X-ray diffraction, H2temperature-programmed reduction, CO2temperature-programmed desorption, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy for analyzingstructural properties and superficial Copper species component. The main contentsand results of this paper are as follows.(1) The MgO and Cu contents have a great influence on the catalyticperformance. The catalyst with the MgO and SiO2mass ratio of9and Cu contents of30wt%exhibits the better catalytic performance with methyl acetate conversion of80.3%, ethanol selectivity of99%and ethanol yield of79.5%. It was found thecatalytic performance could be attributed to the fine Cu copper dispersion, surfaceareas, and the synergetic effect of Cu0and Cu+.(2) The promoters of B, La and Zn have a certain influence on the catalyticperformance. The catalytic performance had a certain improvement, while ethanolselectivity showed a decline.(3) The reaction condition has a great influence on the catalytic performance.The experimental results show that the30%Cu/9MgO-SiO2catalyst has a bettercatalytic performance under the reduction temperature of350℃, reaction temperatureof340℃. On the other hand, catalytic activity was improved as the reaction pressureand H2/MeOAc increased under the certain gas hourly space velocity.