Direct synthesis of 2-ethylhexanol via n-butanal aldol condensation–hydrogenation reaction integration over a Ni/Ce-Al₂O₃ bifunctional catalyst

Abstract

A reaction integration of aldol condensation–hydrogenation for the direct synthesis of 2-ethylhexanol from n-butanal was realized.

Catalytic Upgrading of Ethanol to n‐Butanol: Progress in Catalyst Development

“…Thus, interesti ne xploring rare-earth-metal oxides( La 2 O 3 and CeO 2 )a sb asic modifiers of catalysts for the conversion of ethanol into n-butanol has increased considerably in recent years. [30,46,49,53,55,56] However,a ttention should also be paid to the development of suitable Lewis acid sites because the requirementfor the presence of strong base sites can be alleviated, if Lewis acid centers are present. Moreover,t he Lewis acidbase pairs, if introduced by the modifierors upport in the catalysts, would be affected by the properties of the metal loaded.…”

Iridium nanoparticles supported on hierarchical porous N-doped carbon: an efficient water-tolerant catalyst for bio-alcohol condensation in water

“…Butanol, as a typical bio-alcohol, is a main raw materials to produce biological and medicinal chemicals 42 . Direct self-condensation of butanol to 2-ethylhexanol in one pot under mild condition is a promising alternative to current industrial production of 2-ethylhexanol with three reaction steps 43 . Here, the self-condensation of butanol in aqueous phase was chosen as the model reaction to evaluate the catalytic activity of the carbon supported Ir samples.…”

Preparation of Ni-IL/SiO2 and its catalytic performance for one-pot sequential synthesis of 2-propylheptanol from n-valeraldehyde

“…Thus an improved catalytic performance of Ni-IL/SiO 2 was attained by investigating the effect of reaction conditions: a 2-PH selectivity of 75.4% with a n-valeraldehyde conversion of 100% under the conditions of 15 wt% of Ni-IL/SiO 2 , a hydrogen pressure of 4 MPa, 200 C, and 8 h. The Ni/Ce-Al 2 O 3 catalyst reported in our previous work of one-pot synthesis of 2-ethylhexanol 4 was applied in the one-pot synthesis of 2-PH via sequential self-condensation and hydrogenation from n-valeraldehyde under the above suitable reaction conditions. A 2-PH selectivity of 69.3% with a complete nvaleraldehyde conversion was obtained, indicating that the catalytic performance of Ni-IL/SiO 2 is better than that of Ni/Ce-Al 2 O 3 for one-pot synthesis of 2-PH.…”

“…Instead some researchers including our group have investigated a similar reaction integration of n-butyraldehyde selfcondensation and sucessive hydrogenation. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Liang et al 4 studied this reaction integration using a bifunctional catalyst of Ni/Ce-Al 2 O 3 and realized one-step synthesis of 2-ethylhexanol from n-butyraldehyde, attaining a 2-ethylhexanol selectivity of 66.9% at a n-butyraldehyde conversion of 100%. Li et al 5,6 obtained similar 2-ethylhexanol selectivity and n-butyraldehyde conversion over Ni/La-Al 2 O 3 catalyst for one-pot sequential synthesis of 2-ethylhexanol.…”