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Catalysis and Kinetics
Efficient Catalytic Hydrogenation of Butyl Levulinate to #-Valerolactone over a Stable and Magnetic CuNiCoB Amorphous Alloy Catalyst Bo Chen, Haijun Guo, Zhe Wan, Xiaocheng Xu, Hairong Zhang, Dan Zhao, Xin-De Chen, and Ning Zhang Energy Fuels, Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/acs.energyfuels.8b00378 • Publication Date (Web): 27 Mar 2018 Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on March 29, 2018
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Energy & Fuels
Efficient Catalytic Hydrogenation of Butyl Levulinate to γ-Valerolactone over a Stable and Magnetic CuNiCoB Amorphous Alloy Catalyst Bo Chen, † Haijun Guo, ‡, §, # Zhe Wan, † Xiaocheng Xu, † Hairong Zhang, ‡, §, # Dan Zhao, †,* Xinde Chen, ‡, §, #,** Ning Zhang, † †
Institute of Applied Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Nanchang University, No.999 Xuefu Road, Nanchang 330031, PR China
‡
Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.2 Nengyuan Road, Guangzhou 510640, PR China
§
CAS Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy, No.2 Nengyuan Road, Guangzhou 510640, PR China
#
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New and Renewable Energy Research and Development, No.2 Nengyuan Road, Guangzhou 510640, PR China
S Supporting Information ○
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Abstract graphic
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ABSTRACT: A series of low-cost, magnetic and high-efficiency CuNiCoB amorphous alloy
4
catalysts were developed by chemical reduction method for selective hydrogenation of butyl
5
levulinate (BL) to γ-valerolactone (GVL). The catalysts were characterized by ICP-OES, BET,
6
XRD, FE-SEM, TEM, XPS, H2-TPD techniques. The results indicated that the CuNiCoB
7
amorphous alloy nanosheets with well-dispersed Cu nanoparticles played an important role in
8
enhancing the hydrogenation activity. Reaction temperature, pressure, time and substrate
9
concentration were optimized. The maximum GVL yield of 89.5% with BL conversion of 99.7%
10
was achieved over the best Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst using 3wt% dosage relative to BL at 473 K
11
under 3.0 MPa H2 after 3 h. The considerable stability of Cu0.5Ni1Co3B during catalytic recovery
12
and reuse experiments (5 cycles) was exhibited, because of the transformation of CuNiCoB
13
amorphous alloy active sites to Cu-Ni-Co ternary alloy. The stable and magnetic catalyst was
14
demonstrated to be a promising candidate to produce more value-added compounds from biomass
15
derived raw materials.
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KEYWORDS: Catalytic hydrogenation, Butyl levulinate, CuNiCoB amorphous alloy,
17
Magnetic catalyst, γ-valerolactone
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INTRODUCTION
2
Renewable
3
environmental-benign resource for fuel industry in view of the serious issues on depleted
4
reservation of oil resources and increased emission of greenhouse gases.1 As an important
5
platform molecule in the bio-refinery field, levulinic acid (LA) (4-oxypentanoic acid) and its
6
transformation drew great interests in producing numerous biofuels and biochemicals.2
7
Deoxygenation and C-C coupling are the main reactions involving in the conversion of LA into
8
biofuels, such as liquid hydrocarbons and higher alcohols.3 Biochemical, for example, typically
9
γ-valerolactone (GVL) and levulinate esters (LE), can be produced by hydrogenation or
10
esterification reactions of LA.4-7 Furfural (FUR), another important platform intermediate, can be
11
hydrogenated into furfuryl alcohol (FA) and then converted into LA8 or LE9-10. Among these
12
compounds, GVL has attracted a lot of attention since it has been identified as a renewable and
13
versatile medium molecule. It can be used as an excellent solvent and fuel additive due to its
14
outstanding solubility in water and the notable capacity to mix with gasoline as ethanol.4, 11 More
15
important, many high value-added chemicals, such as 1,4-pentanediol (1,4-PDO), methyl
16
pentenoate, ethylvalerate (EV), are able to be synthesized from GVL.12-14
lignocellulosic
biomass
has
been
investigated
as
an
inexpensive
and
17
Obtaining GVL from LA or LE always involved the catalytic hydrogenation process over a
18
heterogeneous or homogeneous catalyst.15-18 Some supported precious metal catalysts, such as
19
Ru/C15, Ru/TiO219, Rh/SiO220, Ru/ZrO221-22, Ru/Al2O323, Au-Pd/TiO224, etc. have displayed
20
superior activity and operation convenience for the catalytic process. However, the high cost and
21
low stability restrict the application of noble metal-based catalyst in the large-scale production of
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GVL.15, 25 In view of the shortage of noble metal catalysts, recently, many efforts have been
2
devoted to the development of cheap, active, stable and recyclable catalysts for the reaction.26-31
3
Yan et al.27 found that a Cu-based catalyst derived from hydrotalcite-like compounds (HTlcs) (9.8
4
wt% relative to LA) could achieve high GVL yield (91%) from LA at 473 K with 7.0 MPa H2 after
5
10 h. To avoid using high pressure H2, the catalytic transfer hydrogenation (CTH) using organic
6
molecules as the hydrogen donors was demonstrated to be a feasible method to convert LA or LE
7
to GVL.17, 26-31 A magnetic and recyclable Ni4.59Cu1Mg1.58Al1.96Fe0.70 catalyst prepared from HTlcs
8
by Zhang et al.26 could yield 98.1% of GVL from LA through the CTH reaction in methanol at 415
9
K after 3 h with 25 wt% catalyst usage percentage to LA. Tang et al.30 reported a nano-copper
10
catalyst could serve as a dual-functional CTH catalyst for quantitatively converting methyl
11
levulinate (ML) to GVL with a selectivity of 87.6% at 513 K after 1 h in methanol, but the high
12
amount of catalyst exceeding 28 wt% relative to ML was required. Cai et al.31 employed a
13
bimetallic Cu-Ni catalyst for CTH of ethyl levulinate (EL) to GVL with 2-buthanol as H-donor,
14
and 97% yield of GVL was achieved over 10Cu-5Ni/Al2O3 (69.4 wt% relative to EL) at 423 K
15
after 12 h. Notably, Cu-based catalysts were also successfully employed for some derived
16
hydrogenation reactions.32-34 Du et al.33 discovered that a 30%Cu/ZrO2-OG catalyst (20 wt%
17
relative to GVL) could show high 1,4-pentanediol (1,4-PDO) yield (93.1%) from the
18
transformation of GVL at 473 K in 6 h. A Cu/SiO2 catalyst carrying highly-dispersed spherical Cu
19
nanoparticles could efficiently transform GVL to pentyl valerate (PV) in 91% conversion and 92%
20
selectivity.34 These reports indicated that Cu-based catalyst was a kind of attractive candidate to
21
replace noble metal catalyst for the successive conversion of levulinate esters, however, there still
22
some limitations such as high amount of catalyst and long reaction time for the catalytic system
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should be concerned. Therefore, further improvement on the catalyst composition and structure
2
was still highly aspired.
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To address the issue, the inexpensive amorphous alloy catalyst prepared by chemical reduction
4
method, for example Ni(Co)-(M)-B (M= Fe, Co, La, Ce, Mo)35-42 used in the hydrogenation
5
reactions of furfural could be an alternative due to their virtues: the unique chemical and structural
6
properties including broadly adjustable composition, structural homogeneity, and high
7
concentration of coordinately unsaturated sites.43 In our previous study, the Ni1Co3B amorphous
8
alloy catalyst (Ni/Co molar ratio = 1/3) showed a high yield (90.3%) of tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol
9
(THFA) with a furfural conversion of 99.9% at 373 K in 6 h.42 The excellent activity to the tandem
10
hydrogenation of C═O bond and C═C bond on the molecule structure of furfural was due to
11
more isolated Co-B active sites in catalyst. Compared to aldehydes, acids and esters are more
12
difficult to be hydrogenated because of the steric hindrance of C═O bond and weak polarity.
13
Confronting the problem, introducing a third metal into NiCoB structure to form a
14
multi-functional amorphous alloy could be a valuable attempt. Therefore, in this work, a series of
15
low-cost and magnetic CuNiCoB amorphous alloy catalyst were obtained by the introduction of
16
Cu into Ni1Co3B catalyst and applied for butyl levulinate (BL) hydrogenation, since Cu
17
component was testified as the main active composition for mimic reactions in references as
18
mentioned. Effects of varied experiment parameters were investigated and a detailed
19
characterization of the fresh and used catalysts was conducted. The results showed that BL was
20
efficiently converted to GVL under the optimized conditions in short reaction time over the
21
Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst with a usage of only 3 wt% relative to BL, the feature together with the
22
excellent stability in recovery and reuse experiments indicated the well manipulated CuNiCoB
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amorphous alloy could be noteworthy as an efficient catalyst for corresponding lignocellulosic
2
biomass transformations.
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EXPERIMENTAL SECTION
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Sections including Materials, Catalyst preparation and characterizations, and Product analysis are
5
described in detail in the Supporting Information.
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Catalytic Reaction. The catalytic measurements for hydrogenation of butyl levulinate were
7
carried out in a 100 mL YZPR-100 (M) stainless steel autoclave reactor equipped with an
8
electrical heating jacket and a mechanical stirrer. Before catalytic activity testing, the catalyst was
9
took out from absolute ethyl alcohol and dried for 1 h under vacuum at 50 oC, and then was
10
levigated and sieved to ˃ 100 mesh. In a typical catalytic reaction, butyl levulinate (1 mL, 0.974 g,
11
5.66 mmol), CuxNi1Co3B catalyst powder (0.0292 g) and cyclohexane solvent (24 mL) were
12
mixed in the reactor. After the air in the autoclave was excluded completely by repetitively filling
13
N2 for four times and H2 for three times, the autoclave was filled by hydrogen to 3.0 Mpa and was
14
heated to 200 oC in defined time. When the pressure reached a steady state, the reaction was
15
started by adjusting the stirring rate to 800 rpm to eliminate the diffusion effect. After 3 h, the
16
product and catalyst was seperated by magnet. Three duplicate runs were performed to ensure the
17
experimental errors for the catalytic performances within 5% and the mean values were presented.
18
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
19
Catalyst Characterizations. Table 1 summarizes the specific surface area of these catalysts
20
by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) measurements. Generally, the addition of Cu into Ni1Co3B
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composition increased the BET surface area (SBET) and total pore volume (VP) of samples except
2
for Cu1.0Ni1Co3B, meanwhile, the average pore size (Dp) was decreased (Figure S1, Supporting
3
Information). The Cu0.3Ni1Co3B catalyst showed the highest SBET of 32.8 m2/g and the lowest Dp
4
of 15.1 nm. From the bulk composition, the slight decrease in Ni/Co ratio was accompanied by the
5
increase in Cu/Ni ratio via increasing Cu composition among CuNiCoB samples, suggesting an
6
interaction could be present between Cu and Ni1Co3B amorphous alloy structure. For CuB sample,
7
the content of B was undetected, implying that B was difficult to be combined with the sole Cu to
8
form the amorphous alloy structure like NiCoB.
9
Insert Table 1 Here
10
X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of fresh CuxNi1Co3B catalysts are shown in Figure 1. As
11
shown, a typical amorphous alloy structure around 2θ = 45º present on Ni1Co3B catalyst.42, 44 By
12
gradually increasing Cu dosage for CuNiCoB samples, in general, the amorphous feature like
13
Ni1Co3B was observed on these samples, indicating that the amorphous alloy structure was not
14
obviously changed by integrating Cu to form CuNiCoB samples. With the increase of Cu/Ni molar
15
ratio to 2/1, a peak raised at 43.4o ascribed to (111) lattice plane of the elementary Cu (Cu0)
16
appeared among samples33, indicating that Cu precursor can be reduced to metallic Cu under the
17
condition employed for getting CuNiCoB catalysts in this work. In contrast, the sharp crystal
18
characteristic diffraction peaks of Cu2O were observed on CuB sample, which confirmed ICP
19
analysis that the entire loss of B for the sample. When the Cu/Ni molar ratio was manipulated
20
below 0.5/1, the diffractions of metallic Cu was not observed, which could be attributed to the
21
little content of Cu (Table 1) or the formation of CuNiCoB amorphous alloy.
22
Field Emission-Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM) images of fresh CuxNi1Co3B catalysts 7
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are shown in Figure 2. Ni1Co3B amorphous alloy catalyst shows some irregular sheets which were
2
aggregated from a large amount of small particles. The sheet structure can be ascribed to NiCoB
3
amorphous alloy. In addition, some spherical particles attributed to the isolated CoB amorphous
4
alloy particles are agglomerated upon the surface of catalyst.42 With the introduction of Cu, the
5
nanosheets became smaller and their boundary present fuzzier in comparison with Ni1Co3B, which
6
implied that amorphous extent could be further enhanced due to the combination of Cu into
7
NiCoB structure. The further increase of Cu promotes the electron transfer and the optimization of
8
CuNiCoB amorphous alloy structure. Selected area electron diffraction (SAED) image with
9
typical diffraction halo of the Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst (Figure S2a, Supporting Information)
10
provides evidence for the presence of amorphous alloy structure. In addition, as can be seen from
11
the High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscope (HRTEM) image (Figure S2b and S2c,
12
Supporting Information), a large amount of well-dispersed spherical Cu nanoparticles with particle
13
size centered at about 5.1 nm are displayed on these nanosheets. Therefore, HRTEM analysis
14
clearly shows the presence of well dispersed metallic phase with well formed, highly defective
15
metal nanoparticle on the Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst. When the Cu/Ni molar ratio increases to 2/1,
16
these nanosheets of CuNiCoB amorphous alloy cannot be found due to the coverage by the
17
isolated spherical particles, thus restricting the contact of reactants with CuNiCoB hydrogenation
18
active sites. The CuB catalyst displays uniformly distributed spherical particles which are
19
belonged to bulk metal Cu particles (average size ca. 50 nm).
20
To further explore the effect of Cu addition into Ni1Co3B on the chemical state of the metal
21
species, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis of the representative catalysts Ni1Co3B
22
and Cu0.5Ni1Co3B was carried out, and the results are present in Figure 3 and Figure 4. Figure 3
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shows the XPS spectra of Ni 2p, Co 2p and B 1s. For Ni 2p, the peaks at 852.6±0.1 and at
2
869.8±0.2 eV are ascribed to metallic nickle (Ni0) in Ni02p3/2/ Ni02p1/2 level, respectively.45 The
3
peaks at 856.1±0.1 and at 873.7±0.1 eV are assigned to oxidized nickle (Ni2+) in Ni2+2p3/2/
4
Ni2+2p1/2 level, accompanying with two satellite peaks around 862.1±0.1 eV and 880.8±0.2 eV,
5
respectively. For Co 2p, the peaks at 778.1±0.1 and at 793.1±0.1 eV are ascribed to metallic cobalt
6
(Co0) in Co02p3/2/Co02p1/2 level, respectively.46 Meanwhile, the oxidized cobalt (Co2+) in
7
Co2+2p3/2/Co2+2p1/2 level are also observed corresponding to the binding energy (BE) of
8
781.0±0.1eV and 797.0±0.1eV, respectively, accompanying with their satellite peaks. In addition,
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the peaks around 187.8±0.1 and 191.8±0.1 eV are ascribed to the elemental boron (Be) and the
10
oxidized boron (Bo), respectively.45 The BE of Be in the Ni1Co3B catalyst shifted positively by 0.6
11
eV in comparison with the standard BE of the pure B (187.1 eV), indicating partial electrons
12
transferred from B to Ni and Co in the NiCoB amorphous alloy, making the Ni and Co
13
electron-enriched while the B electron-deficient.35 Notably, Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst had lower
14
surface concentration of Ni0, Co0 and Be but obviously higher surface concentration of Ni2+, Co2+
15
and Bo compared to the Ni1Co3B catalyst, meanwhile, both the BE of Ni0 and Co0 signals on
16
Cu0.5Ni1Co3B positively shifted by 0.2 eV relative to those on Ni1Co3B. This phenomenon
17
indicated the electron transferring from B to Ni and Co was suppressed by combination of Cu into
18
Ni1Co3B structure, which could be attributed to the decreased B content (Table 1) or Cu occupied
19
partial electrons donated from B in Cu0.5Ni1Co3B structure. Cu 2p spectra together with Cu LMM
20
Auger spectra for Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst were given in Figure 4. In Cu 2p spectra, two peaks at
21
932.3 eV and 952.2 eV are corresponded to Cu0/Cu+2p3/2 and Cu0/Cu+2p1/2, respectively;31 two
22
species were further identified from Auger spectra. It is worth noting that there are not main peaks
9
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and satellite peaks of CuO species. Above spectra observations, especially the co-existence of
2
metallic species clearly indicated the outcoming of CuNiCoB amorphous alloy with
3
well-dispersed Cu nanoparticles from our preparation.
4
In order to investigate the catalytic hydrogenation active sites, the hydrogen temperature
5
programmed desorption (H2-TPD) of the representative catalysts Ni1Co3B and Cu0.5Ni1Co3B was
6
carried out, as shown in Figure 5. The Ni1Co3B catalyst only exhibits one desorption peak at 455
7
K, implying that there is only one kind of adsorption site on the catalyst. The Cu0.5Ni1Co3B
8
catalyst shows one similar desorption peak at 458 K and another desorption peak at 576 K,
9
indicating that a new adsorption site present on the catalyst. In addition, the low-temperature
10
hydrogen desorption peak is much smaller than that of Ni1Co3B catalyst. These results indicate
11
that the introduction of Cu could decrease the number of hydrogenation active site on Ni1Co3B
12
structure but favor to create new hydrogenation active site. It might be ascribed to the
13
well-dispersed Cu nanoparticles on the CuNiCoB amorphous alloy nanosheets as above mentioned
14
HRTEM observation.
15
Catalyst Screening. The screening of the catalysts for the conversion of BL to GVL was
16
carried out in cyclohexane (CH) solvent as a substitute for the frequently-used 1,4-dioxane and
17
alcohols in liquid-phase hydrogenation.15 The good solubility of BL in CH solvent that is
18
beneficial for the mass transfer during reaction. CH is low cost and low toxicity, which is more
19
economic, safer and more environmental friendly than 1,4-dioxane for large scale production.
20
However, when using alcohols such as methanol and ethanol as solvent, they are possible to react
21
with levulinic acid (LA) to generate levulinate esters (LE).47 Considering these facts, CH was
22
selected as the solvent for BL hydrogenation reaction.
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When Ni1Co3B catalyst was subjected to the model reaction at 200 °C, the reaction gave a 100%
2
conversion of BL but only 64% selectivity to GVL in 3 h (Table 2, entry 1). The introduction of
3
Cu slightly decreased the conversion of BL with an obvious increase of GVL selectivity by 17.3%.
4
As the weight percentage of Cu increased in the CuxNi1Co3B catalysts, higher GVL yield was
5
obtained, 80.3% and 89.5% for Cu0.3Ni1Co3B and Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst, respectively (Table 2,
6
entries 3 and 4). These results indicated that increase of Cu addition may bring two advantages: (1)
7
the new hydrogenation active site from well-dispersed Cu nanoparticles (Figure S2, Supporting
8
Information) could promote the transformation of the reaction intermediate for GVL formation
9
(Figure 5); (2) more Cu would cooperate with NiCoB to form CuNiCoB amorphous alloy (Figure
10
3 and 4), which could inhibit the aggregation of nanosheets to exhibit smaller size (Figure 2) that
11
is beneficial to enhance the activity.31, 48 However, the further increase of Cu led to a lower GVL
12
yield of 68.9% at BL conversion of 99% (Table 2, entry 6). It was probably caused by excessive
13
addition of Cu that resulting in the coverage of CuNiCoB hydrogenation active sites by enlarged
14
metallic Cu species and thereby decreased the GVL selectivity. For the CuB catalyst, the BL
15
conversion decreased sharply to 18.7% with 77.1% selectivity of GVL, further confirmed that
16
isolated bulk Cu species was not efficient for selective hydrogenation of GVL. Scotti et al.
17
found that very small metal Cu particles (less than 5 nm) could exhibit catalytically relevant Lewis
18
acidity to promote the esterification between the C=O double bond of GVL molecule and
19
1-Pentanol. However, the CuB catalyst displayed bigger size of Cu particles (about 50 nm)
20
calculated by the Scherrer equation from the XRD pattern which is consistent with the statistical
21
result of SEM, thus inhibiting the BL hydrogenation conversion.33 These results demonstrated that
22
the Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst was the optimum catalyst for BL hydrogenation to GVL, which showed
11
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89.5% yield of GVL in 3 h at 473 K using the dosage of 3 wt% relative to BL. In addition, the
2
well-dispersed Cu nanoparticles cooperating with the CuNiCoB amorphous alloy active sites were
3
crucial to the high activity of the Cu-modified Ni1Co3B catalyst.
4
Insert Table 2 Here
5
Reaction conditions optimization. The reaction temperature, initial hydrogen pressure
6
and concentration of substrate have a large effect on the reaction rate. Thus, the catalytic
7
hydrogenation of BL was carried out at different reaction temperature (ranging from 393 to 513 K)
8
(Figure 6a), different hydrogen pressure (ranging from 1.0 to 5.0 MPa) (Figure 6b) and different
9
volume ratio of BL feedstock to CH solvent (ranging from 1/24 to 5/20, mL/mL) (Figure 6c).
10
When the reaction proceeded at a milder temperature (393 K), only 14.4%yield of GVL with a
11
BL conversion of 71.7% was achieved. The BL conversion obviously increased to 99% when the
12
reaction temperature was increased to 413 K. With the further increase of the reaction temperature,
13
the BL conversion and GVL yield continuously increased until a maximum GVL yield of 89.5%
14
was obtained at 473 K. This could be possibly attributed to the increase of the reaction rate at
15
higher reaction temperature.31 Further increasing the reaction temperature to 513 K led to the
16
decrease of GVL yield to 75.4% but almost unchanged BL conversion. It was likely that the GVL
17
product might undergo some side reactions and generate unknown products at higher reaction
18
temperature.31 Therefore, the reaction temperature was kept at 473 K for the following reaction.
19
Meanwhile, the reaction was also performed to investigate the influence of the initial hydrogen
20
pressure on the BL hydrogenation reaction (Figure 6b). With the increase of hydrogen pressure
21
from 1 MPa to 3 MPa, the BL conversion increased from 88.5% to 99.7%, accompanying with the
22
increase of GVL selectivity from 85.8% to 89.8%. The higher hydrogen pressure enhanced the 12
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dissolved hydrogen concentration in CH solvent, so much more hydrogen molecules could easily
2
access CuNiCoB amorphous alloy active sites, which accounted for the increased reaction rate at
3
elevated pressure from 1 to 3 MPa. At 3 MPa, the yield of GVL reached the highest value.
4
Increase of initial hydrogen pressure to 5 MPa led to the further hydrogenation of little GVL to
5
produce some byproducts. According to the GC-MS analysis result (Figure S3 and S4a,
6
Supporting Information), the generated byproduct could be attributed to 1,4-PDO and few butyl
7
valerate (BV) from GVL.33 Therefore, a desired initial H2 pressure of 3 MPa for reducing the
8
practical cost and promoting the yield of GVL from BL hydrogenation was employed for the
9
catalytic measurements in this work.
10
Furthermore, the effect of volume ratio of BL feedstock to CH solvent on the BL hydrogenation
11
performances was also investigated (Figure 6c). As can be seen, under the dosage of catalyst was
12
kept 3 wt% of mass of BL unchanged, no matter what the volume ratio of BL to CH was, BL
13
conversion almost was close to 100%. However, the selectivity of GVL showed a decrease,
14
especially for the obtained product at VBL/CH= 2/23. This can be due to the further transformation
15
of GVL to 1,4-PDO (Figure S3 and S4a, Supporting Information). Du et al.
16
1,4-PDO and 2-methyltetrahydrofuran (2-MTHF) could be selectively produced from the
17
hydrogenation of GVL over the Cu/ZrO2 catalyst. Moreover, depending on the reaction conditions,
18
it was feasible to convert GVL to 2-MTHF in excellent yields using the same catalyst system with
19
a slight modification of the preparation conditions via one-step direct carbonyl reduction of the
20
GVL molecule. From this point of view, 1,4-PDO may be generated with high yield from GVL
21
over some materials supported Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst. In the present work, the ideal volume ratio
22
of BL to CH for GVL production is 1/24 (mL/mL).
13
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33
reported that
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1
Effect of Reaction Time. In order to provide convenience for sampling on time during the
2
reaction and avoid the influence of sampling on the character of reaction system, the volume of
3
overall material was increased to 60 mL, in which the volume ratio of BL/CH was 1/11. The
4
effects of reaction time on the reaction conversion and selectivity over Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst were
5
investigated as shown in Figure 7. The reaction reached rapidly the maximum 84.3% yield of
6
GVL in 1 h and the BL conversion gradually increased to 100% as the reaction proceeded to 4 h.
7
However, further prolonging the reaction time resulted in the obvious decrease of GVL yield,
8
which was correlated to that GVL could be further hydrogenated to 1,4-PDO as mentioned above.
9
These results highlight that the Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst could be efficient for one-pot catalytic
10
conversion of BL to 1,4-PDO through the GVL intermediate under suitable reaction conditions.
11
Furthermore, the maximum GVL yield was obtained in 1 h over Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst with 3 wt%
12
relative to BL, which is faster but using much less catalyst than those reported in literatures.26-27, 31
13
Based on the above experiments, the BL hydrogenation rate and product composition over
14
Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst can be adjusted easily by manipulating the concentration of BL and the
15
reaction time.
16
Stability of the Catalyst. To investigate further the stability of the Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst,
17
catalyst recovery and reuse test for the BL hydrogenation to GVL was performed under the
18
optimized reaction condition (VBL/CH= 1/24, BL 5.66 mmol, catalyst 0.0292 g, 473 K, H2 3 MPa,
19
800 rpm, 3 h). After each run, the catalyst was separated by a magnet (Figure S5, Supporting
20
Information), washed with absolute ethyl alcohol and then applied in the next run by adding little
21
once catalyst with the lost amount. The results are presented in Figure 8. As can be seen that,
22
though the catalyst activity showed a slow decrease, the BL conversion were all above 93% in five
14
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cycles, with a maximum GVL yield of 93.2% in the third run. Meanwhile, the GVL selectivity
2
showed a gradual increase from 89.8% to 95%. These results indicated that the Cu0.5Ni1Co3B
3
catalyst was stable and convenient to be separated for repeating use.
4
To figure out the change of the catalyst during the hydrogenation reaction, the used catalyst
5
Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst after five catalytic cycles was collected and characterized. TEM
6
characterization of the used Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst showed that main crystalline particles were
7
formed with interconnected edges (Figure S2d, Supporting Information). The bright dots over the
8
diffraction loop on the inserted SAED image indicated the crystallization of some CuNiCoB
9
amorphous alloy to Cu-Ni-Co ternary alloy with particle size centered at about 45.8 nm due to the
10
loss of B and electron transfer. It can be proved by the newly generated Cu-Ni-Co ternary alloy
11
phase which is observed on the XRD pattern (Figure 9) of used Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst with higher
12
SBET and VP but smaller Dp than the fresh catalyst, suggesting the destroy of amorphous alloy
13
structure. Different groups of lattice fringes are displayed on the magnified views of Cu-Ni-Co
14
ternary alloy particle (Figure S2f, Supporting Information). In addition, the used catalyst particle
15
was easily separated by a magnet due to its magnetism feature, while the fresh catalyst powder
16
was still distributed in ethanol within the same separation period (Figure S5, Supporting
17
Information). It can be concluded that the CuNiCoB amorphous alloy active sites had been
18
transformed into CuNiCo ternary alloy active sites which plays an important role in maintaining
19
the GVL production ability during the recovery and reuse tests.
20
Another factor that caused the loss of activity of the catalyst could be the changes of metallic
21
species. XPS spectra of the fresh and used Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalysts for five times were employed to
22
investigate the nature of metal species. The Ni 2p and Co 2p spectra intensity of used catalyst was
15
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1
similar with that of fresh Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst (Figure 3), but compared to fresh Ni1Co3B catalyst,
2
the BE of Ni0 and Co0 obviously shifted to higher values. Meanwhile, the peaks belonged to Be
3
and Bo was almost disappeared, which indicating the strong loss of B species. The ICP test result
4
(Table S1, Supporting Information) of the used catalyst provided evidence. The loss of B species
5
of catalyst during the recyclability tests is likely to bring some environmental issues when boracic
6
waste water was generated. As mentioned above, the recycled catalyst was washed with absolute
7
ethyl alcohol before the next reuse. It was implied that the lost B species existed only in the
8
washing liquid or the product solution. For the GVL production in large scale, the lost B species
9
could be recycled by the distillation method from the washing liquid or the product solution due to
10
different boiling point. Therefore, in the present work where no waste water was discharged, the
11
loss of B species did not have an effect on the environment.
12
In our previous study, the similar transformation of NiCoB amorphous alloy to Co-Ni alloy was
13
happened in the selective hydrogenation of furfural to FA over the supported NiCoB amorphous
14
alloy catalyst.49 Furthermore, the loss of B species was effectively improved by loading the NiCoB
15
amorphous alloy on an acid activated attapulgite (H+-ATP) support. Therefore, it is essential to
16
optimize the preparation method of Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst for the purpose of alleviating the loss of
17
B species and maintain its hydrogenation ability in the future. From Cu 2p and Cu LMM Auger
18
spectra (Figure 4), it can be seen that the concentration of Cu species on surface of used catalyst
19
was obviously increased compared to fresh catalyst. The major valent state of Cu remained
20
Cu0/Cu+, while CuO was obtained after the reaction. The decrease in surface atomic ratio of
21
Cu0/Cu+ (Cu LMM spectra) might be a factor that influencing the activity of the used catalysts.
22
CuO might be formed in the reaction or partial oxidation of Cu exposed to the air.50
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Comparing the Cu0.5Ni1Co3B amorphous alloy catalyst with other catalysts (Table S2,
2
Supporting Information), Cu0.5Ni1Co3B presented the lowest catalyst dosage relative to substrate
3
and comparable hydrogenation efficiency for producing GVL from BL hydrogenation in short
4
reaction time. Particularly, the outstanding selectivity and yield to GVL were achieved over the
5
Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst, which was comparable with that of Ru/C.51 However, a significant
6
decrease in the activity of reused Ru/C from 95% to 83% after 4th reuse was observed. According
7
to above comprehensive measurements, magnetic Cu0.5Ni1Co3B amorphous alloy catalyst could be
8
an efficient candidate for catalytic conversion of BL into GVL. In addition, through optimizing the
9
reaction conditions and preparation method of the catalyst, BL could be directly converted into
10
1,4-PDO over mimic amorphous alloy structures.
11
CONCLUSION
12
A series of cheap and magnetic CuNiCoB amorphous alloy catalysts were developed through
13
chemical reduction method. The optimized composition was manipulated as Cu0.5Ni1Co3B to
14
obtain the highest GVL yield of 89.5% with BL conversion of 99.7% at 473 K, 3.0 MPa H2 using
15
3wt% catalyst dosage relative to BL in 3 h. Characterization of the fresh and spent catalyst showed
16
that the CuNiCoB amorphous alloy nanosheets with well-dispersed Cu nanoparticles were
17
responsible for the superior catalytic performance on the structure. The transformation of
18
CuNiCoB active center to Cu-Ni-Co ternary alloy active center allowed the considerable stability
19
such as enabling repeating use of catalyst in at least five cycles. These features together with the
20
convenience in magnetic separation of used catalyst from liquid reaction systems gifted CuNiCoB
21
amorphous alloy structures a potential as efficient candidate catalyst for producing value-added
17
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1
chemicals from levulinic compound mediated biomass transformations.
2
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
3
S Supporting Information ○
4
The Supporting Information is available free of charge on the ACS Publications website at
5
DOI:XXXXXXXXXX.
6
Materials, preparation and characterization of catalysts and product analysis; Additional
7
details on the characterization of the catalysts, GC-MS analysis results and catalytic performances
8
comparison.
9
AUTHOR INFORMATION
10
Corresponding Authors
11
* Tel. /fax: +86 79183969332. E-mail:
[email protected] (D. Zhao);
12
** Tel. /fax: +86 20 37213916. E-mail:
[email protected] (X. Chen).
13
Notes
14
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
15
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
16
This work was supported by the project of National Natural Science Foundation of China
17
(21003071, 21406229, and 21563018), the project of Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of
18
New and Renewable Energy Research and Development (Y709jh1001), the Project of Jiangsu
19
Province Science and Technology (BE2014101), and the Science and Technology Program of
18
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Guangzhou, China (201707010240).
2
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catalytic
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X.; Chen, X.; Qiu, X., Selective hydrogenation of furfural to furfuryl alcohol over acid activated
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attapulgite-supported NiCoB amorphous alloy catalyst. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2018, 57 (2),
6
498-511.
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50. Guo, J. H.; Xu, G. Y.; Han, Z.; Zhang, Y.; Fu, Y.; Guo, Q. X., Selective conversion of furfural
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to cyclopentanone with CuZnAl catalysts. ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng. 2014, 2 (10), 2259-2266.
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51. Hengne, A. M.; Biradar, N. S.; Rode, C. V., Surface species of supported Ruthenium catalysts
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in selective hydrogenation of levulinic esters for bio-refinery application. Catal. Lett. 2012, 142
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(6), 779-787.
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Table of Contents (TOC) graphic
2
3
Butyl levulinate was efficiently hydrogenated to gamma-valerolactone in short time
4
over a stable and magnetic Cu0.5Ni1Co3B amorphous alloy catalyst with lower dosage.
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Page 27 of 38 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
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2 3
Synopsis
Gamma-valerolactone (GVL) was efficiently synthesized from butyl levulinate (BL) in short time over a stable and magnetic Cu0.5Ni1Co3B amorphous alloy catalyst.
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1
Tables
2
Table 1 Textural Properties and Bulk Composition of the Catalysts bulk comp. (wt%)d
SBETa (m2/g)
VPb (cm3/g)
DP c (nm)
Cu
Ni
Co
B
Ni1Co3B
18.0
0.124
27.6
0.0
24.3
66.5
9.2
Ni1Co2.7B2.1
Cu0.1Ni1Co3B
24.4
0.131
21.4
2.4
22.6
66.0
9.1
Cu0.1Ni1Co2.9B2.2
Cu0.3Ni1Co3B
32.8
0.124
15.1
6.7
21.7
62.7
9.0
Cu0.3Ni1Co2.9B2.2
theoretical catalyst
actual catalyst
Cu0.5Ni1Co3B 20.7 0.131 25.3 10.8 20.6 60.3 8.4 Cu0.5Ni1Co2.9B2.2 Cu1.0Ni1Co3B 17.3 0.103 23.7 19.1 19.0 54.3 7.7 Cu0.9Ni1Co2.9B2.2 Cu2.0Ni1Co3B 29.5 0.123 16.7 31.3 16.0 45.9 6.8 Cu1.8Ni1Co2.9B2.3 CuB 18.8 0.113 24.0 100.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Cu1.0 a b c d BET surface area. Total pore volume. Average pore size. Determined by ICP-OES.
3
Table 2 Screening of the Catalysts for BL Hydrogenation to GVLa catalyst GVL sel. (%) BL conv. (%) Ni1Co3B 64.0 100 Cu0.1Ni1Co3B 81.3 97.1 Cu0.3Ni1Co3B 81.9 98.1 Cu0.5Ni1Co3B 89.8 99.7 Cu1Ni1Co3B 81.4 99.0 Cu2Ni1Co3B 69.6 99.0 CuB 77.1 18.7 a Reaction conditions: VBL/CH= 1/24 (mL/mL), catalyst 0.0292 g (3 wt%), 200 oC, 3 MPa H2, 800 rpm, 3 h.
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Figure captions
2
Figure 1. XRD patterns of fresh catalysts.
3
Figure 2. FE-SEM images of fresh catalysts with magnification of 100,000X.
4
Figure 3. Ni 2p, Co 2p, and B 1s XPS spectra of fresh Ni1Co3B catalyst (a), fresh (b) and used (c)
5
Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst after five times recovery and reuse.
6
Figure 4. Cu 2p and Cu LMM XPS spectra of fresh (a) and used (b) Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst after
7
five times recovery and reuse.
8
Figure 5. H2-TPD profiles of fresh (a) Ni1Co3B catalyst and (b) Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst.
9
Figure 6. Influences of (a) reaction temperature, (b) initial hydrogen pressure and (c) volume ratio
10
of BL to CH on BL hydrogenation performances over Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst.
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Figure 7. Influences of reaction time on BL hydrogenation performances over Cu0.5Ni1Co3B
12
catalyst.
13
Figure 8. Effect of Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst recovery and reuse on BL hydrogenation performances.
14
Figure 9. XRD patterns of (a) fresh and (b) used Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst after five times recovery
15
and reuse.
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Cu Cu2O
(a) (b) (c)
Intensity (a.u)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
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(d) (e) (f)
(g)
5
15
25
35
45
o
55
65
75
2 Theta ( ) Figure 1. XRD patterns of fresh catalysts. (a) Ni1Co3B; (b) Cu0.1Ni1Co3B; (c) Cu0.3Ni1Co3B; (d) Cu0.5Ni1Co3B; (e) Cu1.0Ni1Co3B; (f) Cu2.0Ni1Co3B; (g) CuB.
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Figure 2. FE-SEM images of fresh catalysts with magnification of 100,000X. (a) Ni1Co3B; (b) Cu0.1Ni1Co3B; (c) Cu0.3Ni1Co3B; (d) Cu0.5Ni1Co3B; (e) Cu1.0Ni1Co3B; (f) Cu2.0Ni1Co3B; (g) CuB.
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Ni 2p Ni02p 3/2 0
852.5
Ni 2p1/2
2+
Intensity (a.u)
Ni 2p3/2
2+
Ni 2p1/2
satellite
(a)
satellite 869.7
(b) 870.0
852.7
(c)
870.3 853.0
845
850
855
860
865
870
875
880
885
Binding Energy (eV)
Co 2p Co02p3/2 778.0 2+
2+
Intensity (a.u)
Co 2p3/2
0
Co 2p1/2
Co 2p1/2
satellite
satellite 793.0
(a)
793.2
(b)
793.5
(c)
778.2 778.6
770
775
780
785
790
795
800
805
810
815
Binding Energy (eV)
Bo
Be
B 1s
191.9
191.7
187.7
Intensity (a.u)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
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(a) 187.9
(b) (c) 180
182
184
186
188
190
192
194
196
Binding Energy (eV)
Figure 3. Ni 2p, Co 2p, and B 1s XPS spectra of fresh Ni1Co3B catalyst (a), fresh (b) and used (c) Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst after five times recovery and reuse.
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Cu 2p 2+
Cu 2p3/2
Intensity (a.u)
932.9
2+
Cu 2p1/2 satallite
953.0 satallite 0
(b)
+
Cu /Cu 2p3/2 932.3 0
+
Cu /Cu 2p1/2 952.2
925
930
935
940
945
950
(a)
955
960
965
Binding Energy (eV) +
0
Cu LMM
Cu
2+
Cu /Cu
570.6
568.6
(b)
Intensity (a.u)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
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0
Cu
+
Cu
569.8 567.9 (a)
564
568
572
576
580
Binding Energy (eV)
Figure 4. Cu 2p and Cu LMM XPS spectra of fresh (a) and used (b) Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst after five times recovery and reuse.
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458
Hydrogen desorption (a.u)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
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455
576
(b)
(a) 323
423
523
623
723
823
923
1023
Temperature ( K )
Figure 5. H2-TPD profiles of fresh (a) Ni1Co3B catalyst and (b) Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst.
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100
(a)
80
BL GVL
60
VBL/CH= 1/24 (mL/mL), mcat.= 3 wt%
40
3 MPa H2, 800 rpm, 3 h 20
0 373
393
413
433
453
473
493
513
533
o
BL conversion or GVL selectivity (%)
Reaction temperature ( C )
100
(b)
90
80 BL GVL
VBL/CH= 1/24 (mL/mL), mcat.= 3 wt% 473 K, 800 rpm, 3 h
70
60
1
2
3
4
5
Reaction pressure (MPa)
BL conversion or GVL selectivity (%)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
Energy & Fuels
BL conversion or GVL selectivity (%)
Page 35 of 38
100
(c)
BL GVL
90
80
mcat.= 3 wt%
70
60
473 K, 3 MPa H2, 800 rpm, 3 h
1/24
2/23
3/22
5/20
Volume ratio of BL to CH (mL/mL)
Figure 6. Influences of (a) reaction temperature, (b) initial hydrogen pressure and (c) volume ratio of BL to CH on BL hydrogenation performances over Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst.
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
BL conversion or GVL selectivity (%)
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100 90 BL GVL
80 70 60 50 40 30
VBL/CH= 1/24 (mL/mL), mcat.= 3 wt%
20
473 K, 3 MPa H2, 800 rpm
10 0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Reaction time (h) Figure 7. Influences of reaction time on BL hydrogenation performances over Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst.
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BL conversion
GVL yield
GVL selectivity
100
100
90
90
80
80
70
70
60
60
50
1
2
3
4
5
Yield (%)
Conversion & Selectivity (%)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
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Run Figure 8. Effect of Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst recovery and reuse on BL hydrogenation performances. Condition: VBL/CH= 1/24 (mL/mL), mcat.= 3 wt%, 473 K, 3 MPa H2, 800 rpm, 3 h.
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Cu Cu-Ni-Co alloy
Intensity (a.u)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
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(b)
(a)
5
15
25
35
45
55
65
75
o
2 Theta ( )
Figure 9. XRD patterns of (a) fresh and (b) used Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst after five times recovery and reuse.
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