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Ru Promoted MgO and Al-Modified MgO for Ethanol Upgrading

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Abstract

Mg-containing oxides are widely studied as effective catalysts for ethanol upgrading due to their capacity to promote dehydrogenation and coupling reactions. In such systems, the dehydrogenation of ethanol to acetaldehyde is thought to be the rate-determining step, so that the addition of dehydrogenation promoters onto the oxides could be a good way of optimizing the catalysts. Herein, we propose a systematic screening of different catalysts (MgO, Ru/MgO, MgxAlOy, and Ru/MgxAlOy) in order to understand the roles of Ru and of the oxides in the several parallel reactions that occur in the systems. We investigated the catalysts by spectroscopic, textural and bench-scale techniques to correlate microscopic results with macroscopic findings. The insertion of Al into the MgO framework improved activity and product distribution towards ethene. Ru increased ethanol conversion in the systems, but directed the product distribution towards methane.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico) for providing scholarships and supporting this work. This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001. The authors thank INMETRO (Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Qualidade e Tecnologia) and INT (Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia) respectively for the HRTEM and XPS analyses. RJD and JTP acknowledge support by the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy, Grant No. DE-FG02-95ER14549.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemical Engineering Program of COPPE/UFRJ, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, P.O. Box 68502, CEP 21941-972, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

    Henrique P. Pacheco, Eugenio F. de Souza & Fabio S. Toniolo

  2. National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality, Inmetro/Dimat, Av. N. S. Graças 50, Xerém, CEP 25250-020, Brazil

    Sandra M. Landi & Marcus V. David

  3. Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Grupo de Materiais Condutores de Energia, Centro de Tecnologia, EQ, Bl. E – 149, I, Fundão, Rio De Janeiro, CEP 21941-909, Brazil

    Marcus V. David

  4. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Virginia, 102 Engineer’s Way, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4741, USA

    J. Tyler Prillaman & Robert J. Davis

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  1. Henrique P. Pacheco
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  2. Eugenio F. de Souza
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Pacheco, H.P., de Souza, E.F., Landi, S.M. et al. Ru Promoted MgO and Al-Modified MgO for Ethanol Upgrading. Top Catal 62, 894–907 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11244-019-01177-y

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