Abstracts Book - IMRC 2018

• SF3-P066
HY ZEOLITES AS CATALYSTS IN THE LIQUID-PHASE
DEHYDRATION OF GLYCEROL TO ACROLEIN
Israel Pala Rosas 1 , José Luis Contreras 2 , Jose Salmones 1 , Ricardo López Medina 2 , Manuel
Alejandro Valdes 3 , Jennipher Pérez Cabrera 2
1 Instituto Politécnico Nacional - IPN - ESIQIE, Secretaría de Estudios de Posgrado e
Investigación, Mexico. 2 Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Departamento de energía-CBI,
Mexico. 3 Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Ciudad Hidalgo, Departamento de nanotecnología,
Mexico.
Glycerol obtained as a by-product in the manufacture of biodiesel may be
subjected to variety of catalytic processes among which dehydration in the
presence of acidic catalysts is one of the most important because it turn out in
the production of compounds of technological interest, such as acrolein and
acetol as major products, depending on the reaction conditions and on the acid
sites present on the catalyst surface, either Bronsted or Lewis acid sites,
respectively; offering a route to their renewable production contrasting to the
current processes of synthesis petroleum derivatives.
On the other hand, due to its acidity and microporous system, Y zeolite
(faujasite-like structure) has been employed as catalytic support and/or active
phase in several reactions such as cracking, isomerization, alkylation,
dehydration and cyclization among others, of a variety of raw materials such as
hydrocarbons, carbohydrates, alcohols and aldehydes.
Under this perspective, this work deals with the performance of Y zeolites to
catalyze the liquid-phase glycerol dehydration in a batch reactor, taking into
account the effect of the Si/Al molar ratio, the concentration of glycerol in the
aqueous feedstock, the temperature and time of reaction. The solids were
characterized by N 2 physisorption, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron
microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, Fouriertransform
infrared spectroscopy of adsorbed pyridine and, Raman and UV-vis
spectroscopies.
The physisorption and XRD results indicate that the solids show the
characteristic microporosity and faujasite structure even with the decrease in
the aluminum content. Additionaly, the total acidity, the distribution of acid sites
and, hence, the glycerol conversion were dependent on the Si/Al molar ratio.
Keywords: Glycerol dehydration, acrolein, liquid-phase reaction
Presenting authors email: ipalar@hotmail.com