RSC Advances
Communication
hexadecanal is obtained. Then, H is added to C]O and an
intermediate linked by a-bond is formed. The intermediate
acquires one more H from the surface of Ni and the desired fatty
alcohols are obtained. When Zn was substituted by gaseous
hydrogen in the reduction of palmitic acid with Ni as a catalyst
in HTW, there was no hexadecanol generated, which suggested
that the in situ formed hydrogen showed a higher activity than
ordinary hydrogen. Therefore, the in situ formed hydrogen is
key to promote the reduction of fatty acids into fatty alcohols.
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Conclusions
A highly efficient method of reduction of fatty acids with a high
molecular weight into their corresponding fatty alcohols over
a commercial available Ni powder catalyst and Zn powder
reductant in high temperature water (HTW) was, for the rst
time, reported in this work. An excellent fatty alcohol yield of
approximately 81.4% was obtained. The recycled Ni catalyst
displayed stable catalytic activity. This study provides a signi-
cant process for the conversion of fatty acids into fatty alcohols
with high selectivity and high yield.
Acknowledgements
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The authors thank the nancial support of the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 21277091), the State Key
Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.
21436007), Key Basic Research Projects of Science and Tech-
nology Commission of Shanghai (No. 14JC1403100) and the
Postdoctoral Research Fund (No. AF0500041). We gratefully
acknowledge the nancial support from the ENN Institute.
¨
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27626 | RSC Adv., 2016, 6, 27623–27626
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