Induction heating applied to anisole HDO using formic acid as hydrogen source

Abstract

Magnetically induced heating catalysis using encapsulated magnetic nanoparticles as heating agents presents itself as a new efficient method for carrying out high-temperature reactions. In this work, magnetic Fe, Co, and FeCo nanoparticles encapsulated in carbon were synthesized using various methods. Rhenium oxide supported on high-surface-area graphite was used as a catalyst for the gas-phase HDO reaction of anisole, a model molecule for HDO studies of biomass-derived compounds. The characterization confirmed the formation of metallic nanoparticles, the alloying of FeCo and the successful coating with a graphitic like carbon film around the NPs, resulting in core-shell type materials. According to the catalytic results, the activity and the selectivity was similar when using formic acid (FA) or hydrogen (H2). Furthermore, by comparing the use of conventional and magnetic heating, it was concluded that carbon encapsulation is an effective strategy to generate a bed that heats but does not catalyze. The ReOx catalyst stood out for its capacity to break the OCH3 bond, forming benzene as the major product. Among the different MNPs, FeCo@CHT presented the best properties and performance.