Investigation on production of dimethyl carbonate from propylene carbonate and methanol on calcium cerium-based catalysts

Calcium cerium-based catalysts with different Ca:Ce molar ratio prepared by sol-gel method were characterized by XRD, N₂ adsorption-desorption, FT-IR, XPS and CO₂-TPD, and evaluated the activity for dimethyl carbonate (DMC) synthesis from propylene carbonate (PC) and methanol. The results indicated that more surface oxygen vacancies and more moderate basic sites are beneficial for methanol activation and thus leading to better catalytic activity. The PC conversion was 91.1% with DMC selectivity of 91.72% over 0.9CaCe under the reaction conditions-reaction time of 2 h, reaction temperature of 40 °C, methanol to propylene carbonate molar ratio of 15:1 and catalyst amount of 4% relative to the amount of PC.