Preparation of Cu/MgO catalysts for γ-valerolactone hydrogenation to 1,4-pentanediol by MOCVD

The laminar MgO with high specific area and the organometallic precursor Cu(acac)2 were used for the successful synthesis of Cu/MgO catalysts by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) method. The copper supported on MgO catalysts were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and N2-physisorption. Characterization results indicated that the organic precursor was successfully deposited onto MgO and the crystal structure of MgO remained intact after deposition. The hydrogenation of γ-valerolactone (γ-GVL) was employed to evaluate the catalytic performance of the Cu/MgO catalysts. It was found that the 18% Cu/MgO catalyst exhibited excellent catalytic activity (90.5%) and selectivity (94.4%) for 1,4-PDO at 473 K and 10 MPa, and the catalytic activity of Cu/MgO did not diminish significantly after cycling for three times.