Amination of ethanol to acetonitrile over Ni-doped Co/γ-Al2O3 catalyst

Study on Alumina-Supported Cobalt–Nickel Oxide Catalyst for Synthesis of Acetonitrile from Ethanol

“…The new catalyst had a crushing strength of 20 N/mm higher than that (13 N/mm) of the previously reported catalyst prepared by kneading method [21]. The result indicated that the catalyst had good mechanical strength as we expected.…”

“…First the catalytic test was run under the optimized conditions used in the previous catalyst that are running the reaction at 420°C under the ammonia/ethanol ratio of 5 [21]. However, the yield of acetonitrile was not good as we expected.…”

“…Many methods have been reported to synthesize acetonitrile from other chemical substances up till now. The raw materials include carbon monoxide [5][6][7][8], methane or other hydrocarbon compounds [9][10][11][12][13][14], ethanol [15][16][17][18][19][20][21] and acetic acid [22,23]. Among all the raw materials ethanol becomes the first choice because it can provide a process which avoids the concomitance of high toxic hydrogen cyanide and gives high quality acetonitrile.…”

“…Among all the raw materials ethanol becomes the first choice because it can provide a process which avoids the concomitance of high toxic hydrogen cyanide and gives high quality acetonitrile. Two approaches so-called amination-dehygrogenation [20,21] and ammoxidation of ethanol [15][16][17][18][19][20] can be employed to the transfer of ethanol to acetonitrile. However, only the former can meet the need of avoiding formation of high toxic hydrogen cyanide.…”

“…The catalyst showed high catalytic activity, good selectivity and long lifetime [21]. However, the catalyst was fragile during the course of regeneration for further investigation.…”