Non-mercury catalytic acetylene hydrochlorination over Bi/CNTs catalysts for vinyl chloride monomer production

The serial Bi/CNTs catalysts were prepared by ultrasonic-assisted impregnation method with bismuth chloride and carbon nanotubes. During acetylene hydrochlorination reaction, the Bi/CNTs catalyst with 20 wt% Bi loading exhibited an excellent catalytic performance with 91.7% acetylene conversion and 97.3% vinyl chloride selectivity in 10 h at T = 160 °C, GHSV(C2H2) = 120 h−1 and V(HCl): V(C2H2) = 1.29. It is proposed that the BiOCl with a stable Bi3+ species existed on the catalyst surface, which can be considered as the major active site in the Bi-based catalysts. Bi species loss and the carbon deposition formation are the main deactivation reasons for Bi/CNTs catalysts.