Catalytic dehydrogenation of ethanol into acetaldehyde and isobutanol using mono- and multicomponent copper catalysts

The purpose of this work was to investigate biomass-derived ethanol dehydrogenation into acetaldehyde using several mono- and multicomponent (CuO, ZnO and Cr2O3)-containing catalysts supported on industrial size Al2O3 beads. The catalysts, prepared with either solution combustion or incipient wetness method, were characterized by using various physico-chemical methods, such as EDXA, SEM-EDXA, TEM, XRD, XPS, pyridine adsorption desorption FTIR, and ζ-potential measurements. The results revealed that the multicomponent catalysts exhibited superior activity compared to the metal oxide catalysts containing only one metal oxide. In addition, the most selective catalyst towards acetaldehyde formation, with 50% selectivity at 55% conversion of ethanol at 300 °C and WHSV 1 h−1 was CuOCr2O3/Al2O3 prepared by using the solution combustion method, indicating that this inexpensive and rapid catalyst preparation method is promising for other applications.