Boosting Efficiency for the Synthesis of Dimethyl Oxalate over Pd/MgAl2O4: Effect of Different Preparation Methods for MgAl2O4 Supports

High active Pd-based catalyst with low loading capacity for CO oxidative coupling with methyl nitrite (MN) to dimethyl oxalate (DMO) has aroused great interest in the large-scale production of DMO for the next hydrogenation to bring forth ethylene glycol (EG). Here, spinel composite oxide support, namely MgAl 2 O 4 , had been prepared through three different methods: solid combustion method (MAO-SC), hydrothermal method (MAO-HT) and co-precipitation method (MAO-CP), and further Pd nanoparticles were anchored to the surface of MgAl 2 O 4 through a simple wetness impregnation method. In the CO direct esterification to DMO reaction, the Pd/MAO-SC catalyst, which used MgAl 2 O 4 support prepared by solid combustion method, exhibited the highest intrinsic activity with Turnover frequency (TOF) value of 2.39 s −1 and DMO weight space-time yield (956.8 g⋅kg cat −1 ⋅h −1 ) with 44.1 % CO conversion and 97.8 % DMO selectivity, and showed negligible attenuation of activity during the process of continuous reaction for 100 h. The characterization results confirmed that abundant oxygen defect sites occurred in MAO-SC synthesized by combustion method not only can help to anchor the Pd nanoparticles with appropriate size and dispersion, but also can promote the interfacial electron transfer from MgAl 2 O 4 support to Pd nanoparticles, thus significantly enhancing the metal-support interaction (MSI) and providing more CO bridge-adsorption sites that is favorable for the CO oxidative coupling with MN to DMO reaction.