An efficient Cu-K-La/γ-Al2O3 catalyst for catalytic oxidation of hydrogen chloride to chlorine

Abstract

An efficient Cu-K-La/γ-Al2O3 catalyst, prepared by the incipient wetness impregnation method, was developed for the catalytic oxidation of HCl to chlorine, in which effects of catalyst composition, calcination temperature, reaction temperature and GHSV of the feed gas and the catalyst stability were investigated. Cu-K-La/γ-Al2O3 catalyst shows good catalytic performance and stability with the conversion of HCl of about 78% for reaction for over 9600h under the reaction conditions of 30g catalyst, 0.1MPa, 340°C, GHSV of 450L/(kgcath), HCl/O2=2:1. Thermogravimetry results indicate that the synergistic promoters of KCl and LaCl3 can significantly reduce the reaction temperature for oxidation of CuCl2 to produce chlorine, which is a key step in the catalytic oxidation of HCl. XRD results show that there were only broad characteristic diffraction peaks of γ-Al2O3 support and copper species, potassium species and lanthanum species were highly dispersed on the surface of γ-Al2O3 support over Cu-K-La/γ-Al2O3 catalyst.