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Effect of Water on Ethanol Conversion over ZnO

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Abstract

This work focuses on understanding the role of water on ethanol conversion over zinc oxide (ZnO). It was found that a competitive adsorption between ethanol and water occurs on ZnO, which leads to the blockage of the strong Lewis acid site by water on ZnO. As a result, both dehydration and dehydrogenation reactions are inhibited. However, the extent of inhibition for dehydration is orders of magnitude higher than that for dehydrogenation, leading to the shift of reaction pathway from ethanol dehydration to dehydrogenation. In the secondary reactions for acetaldehyde conversion, water inhibits the acetaldehyde aldol-condensation to crotonaldehyde, favoring the oxidation of acetaldehyde to acetic acid, and then to acetone via ketonization at high temperature (i.e., 400 °C).

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences for the financial support, the WSU Franceschi Microscopy Center and Dr. Knoblauch for the use of the TEM. Junming Sun acknowledges the New Faculty Seed Grant support from Washington State University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, 99163, USA

    Muhammad Mahfuzur Rahman, Stephen D. Davidson, Junming Sun & Yong Wang

  2. Institute for Integrated Catalysis, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, 99354, USA

    Yong Wang

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  1. Muhammad Mahfuzur Rahman
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  2. Stephen D. Davidson
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  3. Junming Sun
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  4. Yong Wang
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Correspondence to Junming Sun or Yong Wang.

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Rahman, M.M., Davidson, S.D., Sun, J. et al. Effect of Water on Ethanol Conversion over ZnO. Top Catal 59, 37–45 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11244-015-0503-9

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