Abstract: Acetone and methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) have the greatest practical importance among ketones. Acetone is produced through a large-tonnage cumene process. The imbalance of the phenol and acetone market creates conditions for the overproduction of the latter. Development of the technology for producing MEK from acetone would allow the excess of acetone to be removed from the market and make MEK more accessible. The first studies of the gas-phase condensation of acetone with methanol to MEK were carried out at the turn of the 1960s-1970s. The Cu/TiO2 system was used as a catalyst [1]. But the study has not received further development due to low activity and rapid deactivation of the catalyst. In recent years, more active and selective catalysts based on SiO2 and Al2O3 have been discovered [2, 3]. However, Cu/SiO2 catalysts have low stability. Cu/Al2O3 catalysts are stable but have a low selectivity of the methanol conversion to MEK, which is caused by the side reaction of dimethyl ether formation due to the acidity of Al2O3. The goal of our work is to develop a catalyst based on Al2O3, which has a low acidity due to its modification with Mg. It can be expected that a decrease in acidity will lead to an increase in the selectivity of methanol conversion to MEK. The Cu/Mg-Al2O3 system was chosen as the object of research. The effect of magnesium modification of the support on the catalyst performance was investigated. The properties of the Cu/Mg-Al2O3 catalyst are compared with the known catalysts based on SiO2 and Al2O3. It is shown that the modification of alumina with magnesium allows preparing a more active and selective catalyst. References [1] Bolotov B.A., Klyuev V.L. // Journal of Applied Chemistry. V. 44. P. 2280-2283. [2] Method of obtaining of methyl ethyl ketone: Patent 2623435 RF № 2016130246; finding 22.07.2016; publ. 26.06.2017. Bull. № 18. 10 p. [3] Method of producing α-methylsubstituted carbonyl compounds: Patent 2594483 RF № 2015125181/04; finding 25.06.2015; publ. 20.08.2016. Bull. № 23. 8 p. Acknowledgements. The work was performed within the state task of the Institute of Catalysis SB RAS (project AAAA-A17-117041710083-5).

Cite: Lysova D.E. , Chernyavsky V.S. , Pirutko L.V. , Kharitonov A.S.
Copper-Containing Catalysts for the Synthesis of Methyl Ethyl Ketone from Acetone and Methanol
XI International Conference on Chemistry for Young Scientists «Mendeleev-2019» 09-13 Sep 2019