Catalytic cracking of glycerol using metal-supported SBA-15

Abstract

Mesoporous silica SBA-15 was synthesized by conventional hydrothermal method and using triblock P123 (poly(ethylene oxide)20–poly(propylene oxide)70–poly(ethylene oxide)20) copolymer as a structure directing agent with gel composition 1.00 TEOS : 1.65×10⁻² P123 : 6.95 HCl : 140 H₂O. The gel was crystallized at 100°C for 48 h. The Al-SBA-15 was synthesized by incorporated SBA- 15 with aluminium via post synthesis. Additionally, the Ni, Pt, Pd and Ru metal on supported SBA-15 were prepared by aqueous wet impregnation method. The synthesized materials were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, nitrogen sorption analysis, inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission, solid state ²⁷Al-nuclear magnetic resonance, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Then pure glycerol and glycerol waste were utilized as starting materials to test catalytic cracking activities of Al-SBA-15 and metal supported SBA-15 catalysts. Reaction parameters such as catalyst type, reaction temperature, starting material to catalyst ratio, particle size of metal and catalyst position will be study. The optimum glycerol waste cracking condition was set to reaction temperature of 650°C and 10 wt% of catalyst based on starting material. In order to solve a problem of recycling catalyst, the catalyst should be placed in vapor phase of starting material. Pd-SBA-15 was discovered to be a good catalyst for synthetic gas (CO) production. For distillated liquid product, Al-SBA-15 and Ru-SBA-15 gave a high yield of 2-cyclopropen-1-one and 2- propen-1-ol which were important intermediate in pharmaceutical and agricultural fields.