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Temperature-programmed Deoxygenation of Acetic Acid on Molybdenum Carbide Catalysts
Published on: February 7, 2017
Molybdenum Dopped Copper Ferrites as Active Catalysts for Alcohols Oxidative Coupling
Gheorghiţa Mitran1, Shaojiang Chen2, Dong-Kyun Seo3
1Laboratory of Chemical Technology and Catalysis, Department of Organic Chemistry, Biochemistry & Catalysis, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Bucharest, 4-12, Blv. Regina Elisabeta, 030018 Bucharest, Romania. geta_mitran@yahoo.com.
Abstract:
Copper ferrites dopped with molybdenum were studied in an oxidative coupling reaction between methanol and ethanol in the gas phase. The catalysts have been characterized by X-ray diffraction, where the presence of ferrite, magnetite, and tenorite phases was observed; scanning electron microscopy; UV-Vis spectroscopy; and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, which highlighted the presence of octahedral coordination of isolated molybdena species. The catalyst with the highest activity in this reaction and with the highest selectivity to hydroxyacetone is the one that presents Lewis sites with weak acidity. The methyl and ethyl acetate selectivities are directly proportional to the Cu/Fe ratio. It has been observed that the presence of reduced copper sites is responsible for the selectivity in esters, while the presence of reduced iron and molybdenum sites is responsible for the acetol production.
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