Cu-Co Alloy Nano-particles supported on SiO2 and modified by La and Y for Ethanol Synthesis from Syngas

Abstract

Cu−Co based catalysts for ethanol synthesis (ES) directly from syngas requires that copper and cobalt should be in alloy state or in close contact with each other, the chemical state of the bimetallic Cu−Co should be tailored by more than one additives and the group composed of Cu−Co and the additives should be loaded on a support with high surface area. In this work, a strategy for design and preparing such kind of complex catalysts was proposed, by means of loading nano crystallites of La1-xYxCo1-yCuyO3 with perovskite phase on SiO2 and then reducing La1-xYxCo1-yCuyO3/SiO2. In a nano crystallite of La1-xYxCo1-yCuyO3, the ions of copper and cobalt are uniformly mixed at the atomic level and confined in the nano space, favoring the interaction between the reduced products of Cu, Co, La2O3 and Y2O3. Thus, prepared catalyst showed very good catalytic performance for ES. This preparation strategy should be extendable.