Technological advances in the production of high value oxygen-containing chemicals from coal via dimethyl oxalate

Chinese energy structure is rich in coal and less in oil, and the development of efficient and clean utilization of coal resources is a key development direction in China. Coal can be used to synthesize dimethyl oxalate (DMO) after carbonylation by synthesis gas, and DMO can further be hydrogenated to obtain oxygen-containing chemicals with high added value, such as methyl glycolate (MG), ethylene glycol (EG), ethanol (EO), etc. Among them, MG can prepare degradable materials polyglycolic acid (PGA), EG can synthesize polyethylene glycol (PEG), and EO can synthesize ethyl acetate (EAC), which have wide application prospects. This paper focuses on DMO hydrogenation reactions, analyzes the research status of catalysts used in each hydrogenation process, focuses on the regulation of catalyst composition, catalytic mechanism and new catalyst preparation technology, analyzes the problems and challenges in the development of DMO hydrogenation catalysts, and points out the application bottlenecks and future development trends of hydrogenation products and downstream products.