High-performance Cu/MgO–Na catalyst for methanol synthesis via ethyl formate

A synergic function exists in the hybrid catalyst system HCOONa/Cu–MgO to promote the catalytic activity in the reaction from syngas to synthesizing methanol. Moreover, during the formation of CO 2, loss of CO 3 2− and appearance of HCO 3 − suppressed the catalytic activity. In addition, H 2-chemisorption and CO-chemisorption abilities of Cu/MgO catalysts based on various phase structures exhibited remarkable influences on the catalytic activity. ▪ A novel hybrid catalyst system containing alkali formate and Cu/MgO–Na was developed to synthesize methanol from syngas via ethyl formate in a slurry reactor. The results exhibited that high CO conversion (>80%) and methanol selectivity (∼90%) with a mass space velocity of 1800 L(STP)/(h kg) were achieved at a low temperature of 433 K and at 5.0 MPa. A synergic function between HCOOM (M = Li, Na, K, Rb and Cs) and Cu/MgO–Na was in existence for promoting the reaction performance, in which sodium formate showed the optimizing synergy with Cu/MgO–Na catalyst. In addition, the nature of the solid copper catalysts also had a remarkable influence on the catalytic activity.