Achieving Efficient and Low Content Ru-Based Catalyst for Acetylene Hydrochlorination Based on N,N’-Dimethylpropyleneurea

Graphical No DMPUing ground : Efforts are made to design mercury-free catalysts from both technical and economic aspects. Here, a Ru-based catalyst with a low Ru content is prepared by adding DMPU as an efficient stabilizer. The catalyst shows high activity and stability. A new Ru-based catalyst system based on N,N′-Dimethylpropyleneurea (DMPU) was developed for the acetylene hydrochlorination reaction in this study. The optimal 1 % Ru-10 %DMPU/AC catalyst exhibits the best activity with the acetylene conversion of 87.6 % under 170 °C and the GHSV (C 2 H 2 ) of 900 h −1 . Additionally, the Ru-10 %DMPU/AC with lower Ru content (0.2 wt%) displayed excellent activity and stability with acetylene conversion of 81.3 % after 200 h under the conditions of 170 °C and C 2 H 2 GHSV of 180 h −1 . The characterization results indicate that the presence of DMPU could improve the dispersion of the catalytic species and provide full protection to prevent the sintering of the ruthenium particles and to inhibit the reduction of active ruthenium oxide component. Moreover, the catalytic property, characterizations and theoretical calculation results reveal that the ability to adsorb and activate HCl reactant with the addition of DMPU via its strong hydrogen bonding plays a significant role on the high stability of the Ru-DMPU/AC catalyst system.