Effects of the Supports on Activity of Supported Nickel Catalysts for Hydrogenation of m-Dinitrobenzene to m-Phenylenediamine

Abstract

The hydrogenation of m-dinitrobenzene to m-phenylenediamine in liquid phase was studied with the nickel catalysts supported on SiO 2, TiO 2, γ-Al 2O 3, MgO and diatomite carriers. Based on the experiments of X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), temperature-programmed desorption of hydrogen (H 2-TPD) and activity evaluation, the physico-chemical and catalytic properties of the catalysts were investigated. Among the catalysts tested, the SiO 2 supported nickel catalyst showed the highest activity and selectivity towards m-phenylenediamine, over which 97.3% m-dinitrobenzene conversion and 95.1% m-phenylenediamine yield were obtained at 373K under hydrogen pressure of 2.6MPa after reaction for 6 h when using ethanol as solvent. Although TiO 2 and diatomite supported nickel catalysts also presented high activity, they had lower selectivity towards m-phenylenediamine. As for γ-Al 2O 3 and MgO supported catalysts were almost inactive for the object reaction. It was shown that both the activity and selectivity of the catalysts were strongly depended on the interaction between nickel and the support. The higher activities of Ni/SiO 2, Ni/TiO 2 and Ni/diatomite could be attributed to the weaker metal-support interaction, on which Ni species presented as crystallized Ni metal particles. On the other hand, there existed strong metal-support interaction in Ni/MgO and Ni/γAl 2O 3, which causes these catalysts more difficult to be reduced and the availability of Ni active sites decreased, resulting in their low catalytic activity.