Chinese researchers develop catalist to activate ethanol into butadiene

In China, butadiene, one of the most important light olefins in the petrochemical industry with a global production capacity of 18 million metric tons per year, is currently produced through the extractive distillation of C4 fractions from naphtha steam cracking processes or dehydrogenation of C4 hydrocarbons, both of which involve extensive energy consumption and significant emission of CO2.

A research team led by Dalian University of Technology, China, has reported the first cobalt-doped yttrium phosphate (Co-YPO4) catalyst, for preferential activation of ethanol to form acetaldehyde and subsequent C-C coupling and dehydration to butadiene. The catalyst exhibited 68.5% selectivity to butadiene in an ethanol conversion of 78.2% at 350 °C, and thereby close to 61% yield to total olefin (butadiene and ethene). The work is published in the Chinese Journal of Catalysis.