Highly selective hydrogenation of maleic anhydride to succinic anhydride over confined nickel catalyst anchored on MOR zeolite

The hydrogenation of maleic anhydride (MA) to succinic anhydride (SA) is a highly selectivity-sensitive reaction, significantly influenced by catalyst activity and temperature. Excessive hydrogenation often leads to the formation of other byproducts and the decreasing of SA selectivity. A key industrial challenge lies in achieving both high MA conversion and SA selectivity under industrial operating conditions. In this paper, a confined metal Ni catalyst anchored on mordenite (MOR) zeolite was prepared by a simple and low-cost method, and its acidity was regulated by alkali metal ion. The results show that compared with SiO 2 and Al 2 O 3 as supports, the Ni/MOR catalyst achieves an excellent MA conversion of about 100 %, and a remarkable SA selectivity up to 99 %. Meanwhile, the stability of the Ni/MOR catalyst has been significantly improved. With the similar conversion rate of MA, the reaction cycle numbers of Ni/MOR are twice that of the traditional Ni/SiO 2 catalyst. This is attributed to the confinement effect of the MOR channels, which slightly reduces the activity of the metal and then effectively inhibits the over‑hydrogenation process of SA. In addition, a combination of theoretical calculation and experimental characterization was used to deeply study the reaction mechanism of high-selective hydrogenation of MA to SA.