The catalytic activity of copper—Part III

Abstract

The catalytic action of the metallic oxides upon alcohols has been very completely studied by Sabatier and Mailhe in the qualitative way. They showed that the alcohols in contact with oxides at 200°—400° C. can undergo two sorts of decomposition—( a ) dehydration, ( b ) dehydrogenation—and they were able to classify oxides in respect of these two reactions. The following Table is extracted from their paper, and includes only oxides the activity of which is preferentially dehydrogenating:— The activity is expressed in arbitrary units. Only the oxides at the extreme ends of the list given by Sabatier bring about one reaction exclusively. For example, thoria is exclusively dehydrating, and magnesia is the only exclusively dehydrogenating oxide. However, the dehydrating activity of the above oxides is small.