Remarkable Improvement of Catalytic Performance for a New Cobalt-Decorated Cu/HMS Catalyst in the Hydrogenation of Dimethyloxalate...

摘要

Renewable sources of feedstock for chemical synthesis have become a subject of intense interest due to the instability of the crude oil market. Syngas, derived from either coal or biomass, has found a key role in the synthesis of dimethyloxalate (DMO) which, on hydrogenation, yields ethylene oxide (EO) or ethanol. The authors of this work note that although Cu/SiO2 catalysts have been shown to exhibit high yields in converting DMO into ethylene glycol (EG), the maximum reported liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) with 100% yield of EG is only 1.4 housing a Cu/AI-HMS catalyst. Herein, they report the preparation of a cobalt-decorated Cu/ HMS catalyst which exhibits remarkable catalytic activity affording 100% yield of EG, even at a relatively high LHSV. Varying orders of cobalt loading were prepared and evaluated in the synthesis of ethylene glycol via methyl glycolate (Scheme 1). Figure 1 shows the catalytic performance of these various catalysts.