Silver catalysts for the partial oxidation of alcohols

Abstract

The review analyzes state of the art in the partial oxidation of alcohols to carbonyl compounds over Ag catalysts, including the partial oxidation of methanol to formaldehyde, oxidation of ethylene glycol to glyoxal, and oxidation of ethanol to acetaldehyde. For the methanol oxidation process, conditions for implementing the BASF and ICI technologies are considered and the entire chain of transformations from natural gas to formaldehyde is estimated in terms of exergy. When considering modern kinetic studies for the partial oxidation of alcohols on silver, some recent publication are analyzed, particularly those devoted to the application of a ring-shaped reactor to suppress the homogeneous steps of formaldehyde decomposition, the development of a new approach to simulation of the process taking into account different reactivity of the catalyst, and the creation of a simulator to calculate the methanol oxidation process using a neural network with a genetic algorithm. Main steps in the development of a technology for the partial oxidation of ethylene glycol to glyoxal on Ag catalysts are briefly described. The author analyzes modern experimental and theoretical works devoted to the formation mechanisms of oxygencontaining active sites on the silver surface and their involvement in the conversion of alcohols to carbonyl compounds, as well as the new Ag-containing catalytic compositions.