Communication
Carbon-Supported Raney Nickel Catalyst for Acetone
Hydrogenation with High Selectivity
Shuliang Lu, Jiajia Wu, Hui Peng and Yong Chen *
SINOPEC Beijing Research Institute of Chemical Industry, Beijing 100013, China; Lusl.bjhy@sinopec.com (S.L.);
wujj.bjhy@sinopec.com (J.W.); pengh.bjhy@sinopec.com (H.P.)
*
Correspondence: chenyong_bhy.bjhy@sinopec.com
Received: 14 January 2020; Accepted: 11 February 2020; Published: 13 February 2020
Abstract: Catalysts with high selectivity play key roles in green chemistry. In this work, a granular
Raney Ni catalyst using carbon as support (Raney Ni/C) was developed by mixing phenolic resin
with Ni-Al alloy, conducting carbonization at high temperature, and leaching with alkaline liquor.
The as-prepared Raney Ni/C catalyst is suitable for use in fix-bed reactors. Moreover, it shows
high activity and selectivity for catalytic acetone hydrogenation. For instance, at the reaction
◦
temperature of 120 C, the conversion of acetone can reach up to 99.9% and the main byproduct
methyl isobutylcarbinol (MIBC) content can be diminished to 0.02 wt%. The Raney Ni/C may
represent a new type of shaped Raney metal catalysts, which are important fix-bed catalysts in
chemical industry.
Keywords: carbon-support; Raney nickel; acetone hydrogenation; acidity
1
. Introduction
Catalysts play key roles in the chemical industry, and more than 90% of today’s chemical processes
use catalysts [
stability, strength, recoverability, and poison resistance, related to the basic demands of productive
process to achieve green, environmental, predictable, and economic operation [ ]. Nowadays, it has
1,2]. Industrial catalysts have some well-defined features, e.g., activity, selectivity,
3
been realized that the supports, used to disperse and anchor the catalytic active component, play a role
in determining the catalytic properties as a result of their physical-chemical properties.
Isopropanol is a commonly used bulk chemical widely used in organic synthesis, industrial solvent,
and fuel cells [
for isopropanol production due to its easy catalytic reduction of C=O into C-OH [
nickel is adopted as a catalyst for the basic acetone hydrogenation process [ ]. However, powdered
4
–7]. Catalytic acetone hydrogenation is a cheap, safe, and mature alternative method
8]. Currently, Raney
5,8
Raney nickel cannot be applied in a fix-bed reactor, and is mainly employed in slurry phase reactors
for batch productions. Besides Raney nickel, traditional metal/oxide catalysts are also used in acetone
hydrogenation, including Ni/Al O [9], Ni/CeO2 [10], Ni/SiO2 [11], and Pt/Fe O [12]. Nevertheless,
3 4
2
3
these tradition metal/oxide catalysts always exhibit acidity due to the intrinsic characteristics of supports.
Consequently, acidity always leads to byproducts such as methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK), methyl
isobutylcarbinol (MIBC), isopropyl ether (IPE), and others [13–19], which require a further removal
process. Additionally, the reclamation of traditional metal/oxide catalysts requires high-temperature
calcination or strong acid/base dissolution, which can potentially cause environmental contamination.
Carbon materials have a variety of advantages (such as stable chemical-mechanical properties,
ease with regards to reclamation [20
supports [25 30]. Moreover, the pore structures and surface properties of carbon materials can be
adjusted by changing the carbon precursor, adjusting the carbonization temperature, and doping
heteroatoms [31 32]. Therefore, a carbon material with weak acidity can be synthesized via the
–24]), and have wide applications in the metal catalysts as
–
,