Role of CO/CO2 co-feeding in the dehydrogenation of cyclohexanol to cyclohexanone over Cu–ZnO based catalysts

The present work highlights the role of CO/CO2 co-feeding in the dehydrogenation of cyclohexanol to cyclohexanone over Cu–ZnO–Cr2O3 and Cu–ZnO–Cr2O3–La2O3 catalysts in the temperature range of 448–523 K at atmospheric pressure under vapor phase conditions. Both the catalysts are prepared by coprecipitation technique and are characterized by BET surface area, XRD, TPR and N2O pulse chemisorption under dynamic conditions. The co-feeding of CO/CO2 along with cyclohexanol results in enhanced conversion of cyclohexanol and additional formation of methanol. The hydrogen generated in the dehydrogenation of cyclohexanol to cyclohexanone promotes the methanol formation from CO/CO2. This is the first report where in methanol formation is observed at atmospheric pressure from CO/CO2 co-feeding in cyclohexanol dehydrogenation.