Selective bio-butadiene production by 1,3-butanediol dehydration

ANDREA CECILIA RODRÍGUEZ; MARIA EUGENIA SAD; CRISTINA LILIANA PADRÓ

Chicago

Congreso; 26th North American Catalysis Society Meeting; 2019

1,3-butadiene (BD) is an important industrial intermediate used for synthetic rubber, elastomers and polymeric resins manufacture [1]. BD is mainly obtained (95% of world production) as a by-product of steam cracking of naphtha and gas oil for ethylene andpropylene production. However, in recent years due to the increase in the exploitation ofunconventional gas (shale gas) and the decrease in the exploitation of oil, the production ofethylene by naphtha cracking has decreased and consequently also the of butadiene from nonrenewable resources. Therefore, it is highly desirable to find an alternative route starting from renewable raw materials. An alternative is to obtain BD from bioethanol (Lebedev). This reaction occurs at high temperatures (> 673K) on MgO/SiO2 catalysts in the presence of promoters (Zn, Zr, Cu) [2].Recently, it has been demonstrated that the isomers of butanediol (BDOL) (1,2-,1,3-, 1,4- and 2,3-BDOL) can be obtained in high yields by fermentation of glucose, sucrose, glycerol and mixtures of glucose and xylose [3] becoming an attractive raw material as an alternative to bioethanol for bio-BD synthesis process. In particular, the dehydration of 1,3BDOL to produce BD using solid acid catalysts has been recently studied [4] and it has been suggested that the formation of BD may be feasible if a suitable catalyst is chosen that selectively favors dehydration reactions.Significance: We report the selective gas phase dehydration of 1,3-BDOL (ηBD=75%) at 523K over HPA/SiO2 making this reaction an alternative to the commercial process for BD synthesis.