Synthesis of higher carbon number Alcohols from ethanol

Abstract

Bio-fuels, based on renewable bio-mass resources, have emerged as newlinethe viable and sustainable alternatives to fossil-based fuels, with a potential to newlinereduce the global warming. Butanol is considered as the future bio-fuel with newlinemany advantages over ethanol. Besides their use as fuels and fuel additives, newlinehigher carbon number (C4-C8) alcohols find wide-spread applications as newlinefeedstocks, chemical intermediates, and in polymers, surfactants and detergent newlineindustries. The objective of the thesis is to develop supported metal catalysts newlinethat display high ethanol conversion with high selectivity for butanol and higher newlinealcohols, under moderate process conditions. newlineAlumina supported nickel catalysts is chosen as the base catalyst. newlineBoth active phase and the support have been subjected to two levels of newlinemodifications in order to improve the performance, as described below: newlinei) adding different metal oxide promoters to the alumina support newlineii) using three different bimetallic active phases -Ni-Co, Ni-Cu newlineand Ni-M with M=Pd, Ru and Au newlineAll the catalysts were prepared by wet impregnation and newlinecharacterized extensively by XRD, Electron microscopy, TPR, TPD of newlineammonia and CO2, XPS and DRS. newlineModification of alumina support by addition of promoter oxides like, newlineLa2O3, CeO2, ZrO2, MgO and TiO2 results in improvements in Ni metal newlinedispersion, reducibility, modulation of metal-support interactions and newlinevariations in total acidity - basicity, and their distribution newline