Influence of dispersion and stabilization of active metals on Ni-Cu/AC catalyst on gas phase carbonylation of ethanol

Abstract

The gas phase carbonylation of ethanol is an important non-petrochemical route to produce propionic acid. Carbon materials supported Ni based catalyst is widely employed with merits of high surface area and excellent electron conductivity. However, the catalyst suffered from severe metal loss due to weak interaction with support. The efforts have been made to develop a novel modification of nitrogen and oxygen on activated carbon (NOAC) supported Ni-Cu catalyst. XRD, BET, H2-TPR, TEM, HRTEM, SEM-EDS, XPS and ICP are used to characterize physical chemistry properties of Ni-Cu catalyst. The metal particles with small size (2–5 nm) and uniform dispersion prefer to be anchored in NOAC1. The modification of oxygen and nitrogen groups enhances the interaction between the metal and the support. The production of propionic acid (PA) and ethyl propionate (EP) selectivity increased by 15.79%. In addition, the introduction of oxygen and nitrogen groups as well as synergistic effect of Ni-Cu alloy effectively suppressed the metal loss and improve catalyst stability.