Promoting effect of Ce on a Cu–Co–Al catalyst for the hydrogenolysis of glycerol to 1,2-propanediol

Abstract

In this work, a series of Cu–Co–Al catalysts with different Ce loadings were applied to the hydrogenolysis of glycerol to 1,2-propanediol in a fixed-bed flow reactor. The physicochemical properties of the synthesized catalysts were analyzed using BET, N₂O chemisorption, SEM, TEM, XRD, H₂-TPR, NH₃-TPD and XPS techniques. Systematic characterization demonstrated that the incorporation of Ce into the Cu–Co–Al catalyst could effectively restrain the aggregation of active metal species as well as the growth of metallic particles during calcination and reduction, which resulted in the formation of highly dispersed active metals. Large amounts and superior strength of acid sites were present in the Ce-promoted Cu–Co–Al catalysts, as confirmed by NH₃-TPD analysis. The reducible nature of the Cu–Co–Al catalyst greatly increased after the addition of Ce. The higher concentration of acid sites, excellent reducibility and highly dispersed active metals were responsible for the superior catalytic activity of the 8Ce/Cu–Co–Al catalyst and it attained 91.6% glycerol conversion and 92.4% 1,2-propanediol selectivity. In addition, the effects of different process parameters such as the solvent, reaction temperature, operating pressure, catalyst loading, glycerol concentration and liquid flow rate on glycerol hydrogenolysis together with the catalyst stability were studied in detail, showing that the Ce-promoted Cu–Co–Al catalyst had high efficiency and stability for glycerol hydrogenolysis.