Deactivation mechanism and regeneration of carbon nanocomposite catalyst for acetylene hydrochlorination

Acetylene hydrochlorination is an important coal-based technology for production of vinyl chloride, the monomer of one of the world mostly used plastics. Despite of the great potentials demonstrated for carbon-based catalysts to replace the toxic mercury chloride, the stability and the deactivation mechanism are rarely discussed, which is essential for real applications. Herein, we present a detailed study on the deactivation mechanism of nitrogen doped carbon based catalyst in acetylene hydrochlorination. The results show that the deactivation was likely caused by the carbon-like deposition over the catalyst, which can be regenerated with high temperature NH3 treatment. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.