Acetylene hydrochlorination reaction is a dominant process to produce vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) in coal-rich regions. However, the traditional industrial process of acetylene hydrochlorination utilized the carbon-supported HgCl<sub>2</sub> as the catalyst, which is volatile and toxic, resulting in the severe environmental pollution. The worldwide Minamata Convention on Mercury has issued an agreement on the forbidden manufacture of Hg products by the year of 2020. Therefore, it’s urgent for us to explore non-mercuric catalysts for acetylene hydrochlorination to sustain the development of PVC industry.<br/>Based on this application, our group have studied and developed novel Ru-based and Cu-based non-mercury catalysts. Compared with the catalyst modification methods such as adding second metal component and doping the carbon support, the modification of the Ru-based and Cu-based catalysts via inducing certain ionic liquid (IL) made the catalysts have the highest catalytic performance in the reaction of acetylene hydrochlorination. The details of the synergetic catalytic mechanism among IL, active metal and the carbon support has also been revealed via density functional theory calculations combined different experimental characterization methods, which will shed light on the design and development of novel efficient catalysts.

Molecular design and development of novel efficient non-mercury catalysts for acetylene hydrochlorination

256th National Meeting (2018)

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