Highly active Pd-Fe/α-Al2O3 catalyst with the bayberry tannin as chelating promoter for CO oxidative coupling to diethyl oxalate

A large number of phenolic hydroxyl groups in bayberry tannin can efficiently anchor the active component palladium, reduce the particle size and improve the dispersion of the active palladium on the Pd-Fe/α-Al2O3 catalyst. [Display omitted] A novel Pd-Fe/α-Al2O3 catalyst was synthesized by incipient-wetness impregnation method with bayberry tannin as chelating promoter and commercial hollow column Raschig ring α-Al2O3 as support for the synthesis of diethyl oxalate from CO and ethyl nitrite. A variety of characterization techniques including N2 physical adsorption, optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive system (SEM-EDS), inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), were employed to explore the relationship between the physicochemical properties and activity of catalysts. It indicated that a large number of phenolic hydroxyl groups in bayberry tannin can efficiently anchor the active component Pd, reduce the particle size and make the active Pd as a multi-ring distribution on the commercial α-Al2O3 support, which were beneficial to improve the catalytic activity for the production of diethyl oxalate from CO and ethyl nitrite. 0.3 wt% Pd-Fe/α-Al2O3 showed excellent catalytic activity and selectivity in a continuous flow, fixed-bed reactor with the loading amount of 10 mL catalysts. Under the mild reaction conditions, the space-time yield of diethyl oxalate was 978gL−1 h−1 and CO conversion was 44% with the selectivity to diethyl oxalate of 95.5%.