The hydrogenation of methyl acetate (MA) is a crucial step to obtain ethanol from coal-syngas indirectly. In this paper, boron doped carbon aerogel (BCAs) has been prepared successfully and applied as support for copper-base catalyst due to its unique physicochemical properties. The influence of boron on copper-based catalysts Cu/xBCAs (x = 1, 3, 5) for the hydrogenation of methyl acetate (MA) to ethanol is studied systematically. H 2-N 2 O and XRD prove that appropriate amount of boron not only improves the dispersion of active copper species, but also achieves the higher percentage of Cu + in (Cu + + Cu 0). The catalyst Cu/3BCAs performs the best catalytic activity with methyl acetate (MA) conversion of 90.6 % and ethanol selectivity of 59.9 %, respectively. The high catalytic activity comes from the highest proportion of Cu + on the Cu/ 3BCAs due to the lower reducibility of Cu + species caused by the relatively high affinity of boron with electrons.
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