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Grafting of Alkali Metals on Fumed Silica for the Catalytic Dehydrogenation of Methanol to Formaldehyde
Author(s) -
Baranowski Christophe J.,
Brandon Jack,
Bahmanpour Ali M.,
Kröcher Oliver
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
chemcatchem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.497
H-Index - 106
eISSN - 1867-3899
pISSN - 1867-3880
DOI - 10.1002/cctc.202100685
Subject(s) - dehydrogenation , catalysis , chemistry , methanol , inorganic chemistry , selectivity , alkali metal , formaldehyde , fumed silica , organic chemistry
Water free, non‐oxidative catalytic dehydrogenation of methanol to formaldehyde is an important process for the formation of anhydrous, molecular formaldehyde (FA). Sodium or sodium‐containing salts were shown to catalyze the reaction, but their reaction mechanism remains unclear. In this work, we thus investigated the performance of a series of catalysts prepared by grafting of alkali metals on amorphous silica for methanol catalytic dehydrogenation. The resulting catalysts displayed an increased activity for the catalytic dehydrogenation of methanol. Variation of the electron density of the supported alkali metal cations severely affected the FA selectivity, which followed the trend: Li>Na>K>Rb>Cs. A large gap in selectivity towards FA between ions with a high (i. e., Li, Na) and low charge density (i. e., K, Rb, Cs) was observed. Also, increased metal loading adversely affected FA selectivity and resulted in a larger production of carbon monoxide. Sodium grafted on silica yielded the best combination of moderate conversion and high selectivity.