Production of acetaldeide from ethanol

Kinetics of the Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Ethanol to Acetaldehyde on V2O5/TiO2-SiO2 Catalysts Prepared by Grafting.

As a consequence of huge increase in the ethanol production from renewable, its use as a possible alternative raw material is increasing strongly throughout the world. For example, ethanol can usefully be used as a feedstock for producing acetaldehyde, ethyl acetate, acetic acid, ETBE, etc. Acetaldehyde can be obtained from ethanol by dehydrogenation or oxidative dehydrogenation, and different industrial techniques have been developed for these processes in the past. Acetaldehyde production via the oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of ethanol could be a promising alternative to the Wacker process, occurring more simply in a single step and in tubular reactors, provided that high activities and selectivities can be achieved under mild conditions. Therefore, we have studied the kinetics of the ODH of ethanol on a V2O5/TiO2-SiO2 catalyst prepared by grafting vanadyl triisopropoxide onto a support of silica coated with TiO2 using a multistep grafting procedure. We tested the kinetic behavior of the catalyst by varying the reagent concentrations; the residence time; the temperature; the vanadium load; the acid and basic characteristics of the catalyst; and the presence in the feed of reaction products such as water or acetaldehyde.