In recent years, the maturation of the ethanol industry has led to more readily available pathways toward renewable fuels. However, the presence of the “blendwall” problem, as well as the shift in focus toward heavier fuels, has resulted in a need for processes that can use ethanol as a building block for more valuable fuels and chemical products. The ethanol industry is now well situated for this next step, because of the development of a variety of feed sources beyond traditional fermentation of biomass, such as natural gas and municipal waste, which provide a strong foundation for the repositioning of ethanol as a versatile platform molecule. Concurrently, numerous processes are being developed for the conversion of ethanol into a wide range of value-added oxygenated and hydrocarbon products, populating a growing, flexible product portfolio. One such process, the Guerbet reaction, is a well-known chemistry for coupling alcohols that has resurfaced as a promising pathway toward producing 1-butanol and other valuable higher alcohols. Though the general chemistry for Guerbet coupling is largely agreed upon, recent research interest has been focusing on developing catalysts that can achieve both high selectivities and yield by mitigating the numerous potential side reactions that begin to dominate when pushing toward high conversion. In our work, we have focused on hydrotalcite structures and demonstrated high yields of C4+ alcohols. In this talk we will present the insight in to the catalyst and process development.

Guerbet ethanol coupling over a stable Cu-MgO-Al2O3 catalyst

254th National Meeting (2017)

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