Low-Cost Nanoscale Palladium Catalyst for Coal-to-EG Synthesis

The manufacture of dimethyl oxalate through gas phase oxidative coupling of CO is a key step for converting inorganic C1species to organic C2species in the course of coal based ethylene glycol production. However, the palladium loading on the currently adopted catalysts is still too high, resulting in a significant increase in the catalyst cost. Supported by the Science and Technology Ministry’s guiding project on major scientific problems – the “973”program, the State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry under the CAS Fujian Material Structure Institute has for the first time found out and verified that the (111) plane of naked nano-palladium crystal is the competitively active crystal plane for oxidative coupling of CO to form dimethyl oxalate. The research team by using the in-situ reduction by Cu (II) ions at room temperature has synthesized a novel nano-Pd catalyst with a very low loading of noble metal (around 0.1%), which is characteristic of superior performance and long service life, and can significantly reduce the catalyst cost and save enormous noble metals resources. The success in preparation of this catalyst can give rise to a new generation of coalto-EG catalysts.