Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2013, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (4): 651-658.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(12)60535-X

• Communications • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Hydrogenation and cleavage of the C-O bonds in the lignin model compound phenethyl phenyl ether over a nickel-based catalyst

SONG Qia,b, CAI Jiayinga,b, ZHANG Junjiea,b, YU Weiqianga, WANG Fenga, XU Jiea   

  1. a Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, Liaoning, China;
    b Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2012-12-30 Revised:2013-01-30 Online:2013-04-23 Published:2013-04-24
  • Supported by:

    This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21073184, 21273231, 21233008) and One Hundred Person Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Abstract:

Phenethyl phenyl ether (PPE) was selected as a typical lignin model compound and hydrogenated and cleaved over two readily accessible nickel-based catalysts, which could be easily separated from the product mixture. The results revealed that the reduction of the nickel catalyst with gaseous hydrogen produced a species capable of achieving higher activity towards C-O-C bond cleavage compared to the Ru/C and Pd/C catalysts. The selectivity of the C-O-C bond cleavage over the Ni/C catalyst was 85%, and higher than the corresponding values in the Ru/C (40%) and Pd/C (69%) systems. Using the carbothermal reduction method for the production of the Ni/C-C catalyst, the conversion and selectivity levels reached 99%, with 40% of the benzene rings in PPE being reserved. In comparison, no benzene ring containing products wer observed over the noble metal catalysts. This difference was attributed to the interaction between the carbon support and the nickel nanoparticles.

Key words: Lignin model compound, Phenethyl phenyl ether, Hydrogenation and cleavage, Nickel catalyst, Aromatic compound