Highly efficient mesostructured Ag/SBA-15 catalysts for the chemoselective synthesis of methyl glycolate by dimethyl oxalate hydrogenation

Ag/SBA-15 catalyst is found to exhibit excellent catalytic activity and long-term stability for the chemoselective hydrogenation of dimethyl oxalate to methyl glycolate. The size of Ag crystallites, which is markedly affected by the Ag loading levels and catalyst pretreatment conditions, is a key factor determining the reaction rate of the structure-sensitive hydrogenation but hardly influenced the product distribution. The best catalytic hydrogenation activity is obtained over the Ag/SBA-15 catalyst with an average Ag crystallite size of around 3.9 nm. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.