POLYMERIC ACTIVATED CARBON-SUPPORTED COPPERAND MAGNESIUM FOR ETHYLBENZENEDEHYDROGENATION WITH CARBON DIOXIDE

摘要

Polymeric activated carbons find several applications, including catalytic supports forethylbenzene dehydrogenation with carbon dioxide to produce styrene. Aiming to getefficient catalysts for this reaction, the preparation and characterization of polymericactivated-supported copper and magnesium were studied in this work. It was observedthat copper increases the ethylbenzene conversion but decreases the selectivity to styrene,while its combination with magnesium results in an increase of both activity andselectivity. The treatment of the catalyst containing both metals with a sodium hydroxidesolution improved even more its performance. These findings were attributed to theability of copper in catalyzing the reaction as well as to the ability of magnesium inneutralizing the acid sites, favoring the mesoisomerization and the rearrangement of thesurface groups in lactones and anhydrides that are more selective to styrene.