Effects of zirconia phase on the synthesis of higher alcohols over zirconia and modified zirconia

✍ Scribed by Daiping He; Yunjie Ding; Hongyuan Luo; Can Li

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 109 KB
• Volume: 208
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1381-1169
• DOI: 10.1016/s1381-1169(03)00542-9

✦ Synopsis

The catalytic performances of ZrO 2 -based catalysts were evaluated for the synthesis of higher alcohols from synthesis gas. The crystal phase structures were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV Raman. The results indicated that ZrO 2 and Pd modified ZrO 2 catalysts were effective catalysts in the synthesis of ethanol or isobutanol, and their selectivities basically depended on the crystal phase of ZrO 2 surface. The ZrO 2 with surface tetragonal crystal phase exhibited a high activity to form ethanol, while the ZrO 2 with surface monoclinic crystal phase exhibited a high activity to form isobutanol. Temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) experiment indicated that the high activity of isobutanol formation from synthesis gas over monoclinic zirconia was due probably to the strong Lewis acidity of Zr 4+ cations and the strong Lewis basicity of O 2-anions of coordinative unsaturated Zr 4+ -O 2-pairs on the surface of monoclinic ZrO 2 .