Journal
GREEN CHEMISTRY
Volume 23, Issue 20, Pages 8030-8039Publisher
ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY
DOI: 10.1039/d1gc01979a
Keywords
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Funding
- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Bioenergy Technologies Office
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) [DE-AC05-76RL01830]
- Co-Optimization of Fuels & Engines (Co-Optima) project - U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Bioenergy Technologies and Vehicle Technologies Offices
- DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory [DE-AC02-06CH11357]
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A study showed a highly selective conversion of ethanol to higher alcohols using low copper loaded MgAl mixed oxide catalysts, achieving a significant improvement in higher alcohol yields and cost-competitive results, offering a new pathway for the conversion of renewable ethanol.
The recent emergence of a robust renewable ethanol industry has provided a sustainable platform molecule toward the production of value-added chemicals and fuels; what is lacking now are viable conversion processes from ethanol that can displace the current production pathways from non-renewable pathways. Here in the work, we demonstrate the highly selective conversion of ethanol to higher alcohols over low copper loaded MgAl mixed oxide catalysts, with 50% improvement in higher alcohol yields over the current state of the art. At these copper concentrations, atomically dispersed Cu1+ were found to be stable even at highly reductive conditions and highly active towards higher alcohol products (e.g. butanol, hexanol) while suppressing side reaction pathways and leading to extended lifetimes of over 150 hours time on stream. Technoeconomic analysis conducted based on these experimental results demonstrate that this catalytic system is cost-competitive with the conventional process. This marks significant progress in the development of Guerbet coupling of ethanol as a viable renewable process and offers a pathway toward sustainable chemical and fuel production.
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