Production of glycerol carbonate by coupling glycerol and CO2 over various metal oxide catalyst

A series of metal oxides, i.e., CuO、NiO、Co3O4、ZrO2、Al2O3, catalysts were prepared by hydrothermal method and evaluated in the production of glycerol carbonate by coupling of glycerol and CO2 under lower temperature. The results show that CuO showed the best catalytic performance (glycerol conversion and the glycerol carbonate selectivity were 89.0 % and 69.4 %, respectively) at 120 ℃ under 3.0 MPa of CO2 for 5 h. This is the highest yield of glycerol carbonate using same mothed reported in the literature so far. The structures, morphologies and surface properties of the catalysts were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), N2 adsorption-desorption, Temperature programmed reduction (H2-TPR), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Temperature programmed desorption (TPD). It is speculated that the high catalytic activity of CuO mainly depends on its unique structure and acid-base physicochemical properties. In addition, the CuO catalyst was used 7 times without obvious deactivation, which suggesting this catalysis has excellent reusability.