Readily-fabricated supported MgO catalysts for efficient and green synthesis of diethyl carbonate from ethyl carbamate and ethanol

Abstract

Developing cost-effective, high-efficiency and heterogeneous catalysts is of prime importance for the green synthesis of diethyl carbonate (DEC) from ethyl carbamate (EC) and ethanol. Herein, a series of MgO/γ-Al₂O₃ catalysts were readily fabricated by an impregnation method for DEC synthesis from EC and ethanol. The activities of the as-prepared MgO/γ-Al₂O₃ catalysts as well as the individual MgO or γ-Al₂O₃ were first tested in the batch reactor. Among the investigated samples, the MgO/γ-Al₂O₃ with a MgO loading of 10 wt% (denoted as 10% MgO/γ-Al₂O₃) exhibited the largest amount of stronger basic sites, and the highest activities with EC conversion of 41.8% and DEC yield of 30.4%, respectively. Furthermore, the DEC yield was greatly boosted to 52.1% with a high DEC selectivity of 93.8% over the 10% MgO/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst under the optimized reaction conditions in the fixed bed reactor, outperforming most of the reported catalysts.