Title of Paper:Controllable synthesis of highly dispersed Cu/SiO2catalysts in supercritical CO2and their application in the hydrogenation of dimethyl oxalate to ethylene glycol

Hits:

Date of Publication:2016-11-13

Included Journals:EI

Volume:2

Page Number:472-480

Abstract:Highly dispersed Cu nanostructures were synthesized within mesoporous silica in supercritical CO2using inorganic Cu precursors. Co-solvent was found to have significant influence on the metal loading and the nanostructure morphologies of the nanocomposites. Although the inorganic precursor has large solubility in ethanol, 1, 3 propylene glycol, n-butyl alcohol and methanol, only big nanoparticles outside the nanochannels were obtained when the first three co-solvents were used, while zero metal loading was obtained when methanol was used as co-solvent. However, when ethylene glycol or the mixture of ethylene glycol and water were used as co-solvents, large amounts of short nanotubes were found inside the nanochannels with large metal loading. It indicates that the role of the co-solvent may have many aspects, such as enhancement of the precursor dissolution, change of the interaction between the precursor and the substrates and so on.