Effect of tungsten surface density of WO3–ZrO2 on its catalytic performance in hydrogenolysis of cellulose to ethylene glycol. Issue 14 (27th January 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chai, Jiachun; Zhu, Shanhui; Cen, Youliang; Guo, Jing; Wang, Jianguo; Fan, Weibin
• Is Part Of: RSC advances. Volume 7:Issue 14(2017)
• Page Start: 8567
• Page End: 8574
• Publication Date: 2017-01-27
• Subjects: Chemistry -- Periodicals; 540.5
• DOI: 10.1039/c6ra27524a
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2046-2069

Abstract

Abstract : New understanding on reaction mechanism of cellulose hydrogenolysis to ethylene glycol over WO3 –ZrO2 catalyst combined with Ru/C. Abstract : One-pot hydrogenolysis of cellulose to ethylene glycol (EG) was carried out on WO3 -based catalysts combined with Ru/C. To probe the active catalytic site for breaking the C–C bond of cellulose, a series of WO3 –ZrO2 (WZr) catalysts were synthesized and systematically characterized with XRD, Raman, UV-Vis, H2 -TPR, DRIFS and XPS techniques and N2 physisorption experiment. It was found that the WO3 crystallites became more easily reduced to W 5+ –OH species with increasing crystallite size or tungsten surface density of the WZr catalyst owing to the decrease of their absorption edge energy (AEE) originating from weakening their interaction with ZrO2 support. This, as a result, gave higher EG yield at higher tungsten surface density. The structure–activity relationship of the WZr catalyst reveals that the active catalytic site for cleaving the C2 –C3 bond of the glucose molecule is the W 5+ –OH species.