Activated Carbon-Supported Tetrapropylammonium Perruthenate Catalysts for Acetylene Hydrochlorination

Abstract

The Ru-based catalysts, including Ru/AC (activated carbon), TPAP (tetrapropylammonium perruthenate)/AC, TPAP/AC-HNO3, and TPAP/AC-HCl, were prepared and assessed for the direct synthesis of vinyl chloride monomer. The results indicate that the TPAP/AC-HCl catalyst exhibits the best performance with the conversion falling from 97% to 91% in 48 hours’ reaction under the conditions of 180 °C, a GHSV(C2H2) of 180 h−1, and the feed ratio VHCl/VC2H2 of 1.15. The substitution of RuCl3 precursor with high valent TPAP species leads to more ruthenium oxides active species in the catalysts; the acidification treatment of carrier in TPAP/AC catalyst can produce an enhanced interaction between the active species and the modified functional groups on the carrier, and it is beneficial to inhibit the carbon deposition and sintering of ruthenium species in the reaction process, greatly increase the adsorption ability of reactants, and further increase the amount of dominating active species in the catalysts, thus improving the catalytic performance. This also provides a promising strategy to explore high efficient and economic mercury-free catalysts for the hydrochlorination of acetylene.