Abstract:
Methyl glycolate (MG) is a high value-added chemical intermediate and widely used in the fields of medicine, chemical industry, fodder and dyes. A series of CuAg/SiO
2 catalysts were prepared by sol-gel method for hydrogenation of dimethyl oxalate to MG. The structure of catalysts was characterized by XRD, N
2-physical adsorption, FT-IR, TEM, H
2-TPR, and XPS, and the influence of Ag loading on catalytic performance was investigated. The 5Ag-Cu/SiO
2 catalyst with Ag loading of 5% exhibited the best catalytic performance with DMO conversion of 83.7% and MG selectivity of 72.2%. The characterization results showed that introducing appropriate amount of Ag not only improved the dispersion of copper species, but also increased the content of Cu
+, thereby improving the catalytic activity of CuAg/SiO
2 catalysts. In addition, the electron transfer between Ag and Cu could effectively stabilize Cu
+, and eventually improved the stability of the catalyst.