Selective Catalytic Synthesis Of Ethylene Glycol Monobutyl Ether By Ethoxylation Reaction

Ethylene glycol monobutyl ether ?EGBE? as a kind of nonionic surfactant, is widely used in washing, paints, medical, etc. The traditional method synthesis of EGBE is use butyl alcohol and EO through ethoxylation reaction. According to the report, the reaction exists acid catalytic and alkali catalytic two kinds of mechanisms. Acid catalysts representative have SnCl₄?BF₃?SbCl₅; Alkali catalysts representative have NaOH, KOH and NaOCH₃. All of these catalysts have good catalytic performance for ethoxylation, but they also have some problems such as low selectivity of products; catalyst and products are difficulty to separate; corrosion equipment. So the priority of ethoxylation research is develop high efficiency, environmental protection and stability new catalyst.In this work, choose several molecular sieves as acid catalysts and select Cerium Zirconium mixed metal oxide as alkali catalyst for oxyethylation of butyl alcohol with EO in a fixed bed reactor. The structures and phy-chemical properties of the catalysts were characterized by XRD, CO₂-TPD, NH₃-TPD and BET. Associated with catalytic performance, the influence of the types of molecular sieves, the types of mixed metal oxides, preparation methods of Ce/Zr mixed metal oxides, Ce/Zr ratios, catalysts synthesis temperatures, calcination temperatures were deeply investigated. Select the catalyst which posses the best catalytic performance for butanol ethoxylation and its stability were investigated. The main conclusions are shown as follows:?1? Through NH₃-TPD characterization of H-ZSM₅ at different Si/Al ratios, associated with the catalytic performance datas, presumably butyl alcohol ethoxylation of acid catalytic mechanism is propitious to promote the main reaction of weak acid sites, and strong acid sites are bad for the main reaction.?2? Through BET characterization textural properties of H-ZSM₅?HY?ATP three kinds of catalysts, associated with the catalytic performance datas, we can draw the conclusion that under the condition of acid properties close, three kinds of catalystss'textural properties have little influence on the catalytic performance, but high surface area?big average pore size and large pore volume can improve the stability of the reaction.HY?Si/Al=10? can keep high catalytic performance of EO conversion of 100% above 370 h, so it has a very good application prospect.?3? According to material EO conversion and the product EGBE selectivity, Ce/Zr composite metal oxide is better for this reaction. Adopt ionic surfactant template method as catalyst preparation method, Ce/Zr ratio is 0.65:0.35, catalyst synthesis temperature is 30?, calcined at 800? for 4 h, material EO conversion can reach 100%, selectivity of objective product EGBE can reach 86.5%,and stability performance above 260 h.