Dehydration—dehydrogenation selectivity of Butan-2-ol on cadmium phosphate catalysts

Abstract

On cadmium phosphate catalysts, with the molar P/Cd ratio varying from the stoichiometric value 0.67 to 1.5, butan-2-ol undergoes dehydrogenation to produce methyl ethyl ketone and dehydration to produce n-butenes at 573 K. The selectivity to dehydrogenation decreases with increase in P/Cd, while that to dehydration increases and at the same time the total conversion decreases. Both the quantity of dehydrogenation product and the number of basic sites decreases continuously with P/Cd, while the quantity of dehydration products and the number of acid sites increases to a maximum at P/Cd = 1.2 and decreases with further increase in P/Cd. A tentative mechanism is proposed.