Highly selective hydrodeoxygenation of anisole, phenol and guaiacol to benzene over nickel phosphide

Abstract

Ni₂P supported catalysts have extensively been studied for various hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) reactions. However, the main products are cyclohexane or cyclohexanol for lignin-derived compounds HDO over these catalysts. In this study, we investigate the catalytic conversion of anisole, phenol and guaiacol to benzene over Ni₂P/SiO₂ by probing the reaction conditions. The results show that a lower reaction temperature and higher H₂ pressure favour the hydrogenation of these model chemicals to cyclohexane, whereas a higher reaction temperature and lower H₂ pressure aid the generation of benzene. The cyclohexane and benzene yields are 89.8% and 96.0% at 1.5 MPa and 573 K and 0.5 MPa and 673 K, respectively. By eliminating the influence of internal and external diffusion, the low intrinsic activation energy of 58.2 kJ mol⁻¹ is obtained, which explains the high catalytic activity. In addition, although guaiacol HDO has a low conversion due to the space steric effect of its substituents, it presents a similar reaction pathway to obtain anisole and phenol, which is dependent on reaction conditions. The long-run evaluation experiment shows that the activity and selectivity of anisole HDO to benzene changes slightly for 36 h.