Effects of Mn, Zr and Ni Promoters on the Performance of CuZnO Catalyst for Ethanol Synthesis via CO Hydrogenation

Abstract

A series of CuZnO catalysts modified with Mn, Zr and Ni promoters were prepared by the complete liquid‐phase method. The performance of the modified catalysts for synthesis of ethanol from syngas was evaluated in slurry bed reactor. The results show that Mn and Zr can effectively improve the CO conversion and reduce the generation of hydrocarbons. Under the reaction conditions of 4 MPa and 280 °C, the ethanol selectivity reached 17.7 % in the 2 %Ni modified catalyst. The H2‐TPR characterization results showed that the presence of a large amount of highly dispersed Cu+ in the Mn and Zr‐promoted catalysts is conducive to the improvement of CO conversion. The XPS results showed that the addition of Ni was beneficial to the increase of surface oxygen vacancy content. It is speculated that the existence of oxygen vacancies is favorable to the insertion of CO molecules, and further conducive to the synthesis of ethanol.