The relationship between the structure and catalytic performance Cu/ZnO/ZrO2 catalysts for hydrogenation of dimethyl 1,4-cyclohexane dicarboxylate

Abstract

The gas-phase hydrogenation of dimethyl 1,4-cyclohexane dicarboxylate to 1,4-cyclohexane dimethanol (CHDM) was conducted on well-dispersed supported Cu/ZnO/ZrO2 catalysts. The results indicated that the structure and catalytic performance of resulting copper-based catalysts were profoundly affected by the addition of zirconium. Moreover, the as-synthesized catalyst with 35.0 wt.% ZrO2 component was found to exhibit superior catalytic performance with a high CHDM yield of 96.8% to other catalysts, which should be mainly attributed to the significant dispersion effect of ZrO2 on the copper-containing species resulting in a higher metallic copper surface area as well as a larger number of Cu+ species.