MgO: an excellent catalyst support for CO oxidative coupling to dimethyl oxalate
Abstract
Pd/MgO catalysts are found, for the first time, to be extraordinarily active and stable for CO oxidative coupling to dimethyl oxalate. A series of Pd/MgO catalysts with Pd loadings of 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 1 and 2 wt% were prepared by a wet impregnation method and systematically characterized by XRD, TEM, ICP, UV-DRS, H2-TPR and CO2-TPD. It has been demonstrated that the amount of Pd loading has a pronounced effect on the catalytic activity for CO oxidative coupling to dimethyl oxalate. CO conversion increases with the increase of the Pd loading due to high dispersion and similar sizes of Pd nanoparticles, as well as, the increase in number of surface active sites.