Catalytic conversion of alcohols: The impact of inductive effect for secondary alcohol dehydration

Abstract

To produce high-purity 1-octene, the dehydration of 1-octanol was performed over a dual-bed catalytic system comprising Al2O3 and Ba/Al2O3 catalysts. The influence of the catalyst weight on the activities of Al2O3 and Ba/Al2O3 single-bed systems was initially investigated at liquid hourly space velocities (LHSVs) of 7–168 h−1 at 400 °C. For the Al2O3 single-bed system, the 1-octene selectivity decreased with an increase in the catalyst weight. Although the 1-octene selectivity of Ba/Al2O3 increased owing to the anti-Saytzeff effect, its yield was limited due to a low 1-octanol conversion. The efficiency of the dual-bed catalytic system was subsequently investigated by varying the catalyst bed ratio (i.e., xAl–yBa). The 40Al-60Ba catalytic system afforded a higher conversion (95.3%) and productivity than the Ba/Al2O3 single-bed system at an LHSV of 56 h−1. Moreover, the 10Al-90Ba catalytic system with a high Ba/Al2O3 catalyst ratio exhibited a high 1-octene productivity at LHSVs of 7–28 h−1, while also yielding a high-purity product. The single-bed system exhibited a lower selectivity toward 1-octene than the dual-bed system, and after 100 h, the 10Al-90Ba dual-bed system offered a stable catalytic performance regardless of the small reductions in the 1-octene selectivity and yield.