Dehydrogenation of methanol to methyl formate over CuO−SiO2 gel catalyst

Abstract

CuO−SiO2 gel catalysts were prepared by sol-gel method and were characterized by UV-Visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and temperature-programmed reduction (TPR). It was found that the copper loadings have a strong influence on the reduction and catalytic properties of CuO−SiO2 gels. A great part of copper oxide is highly dispersed as confirmed by TPR, XRD and DRS data. The catalysts are shown to be active and selective toward methyl formate formation in methanol dehydrogenation due to the presence of highly dispersed copper over SiO2.