Direct vapor-phase carbonylation of methanol at atmospheric pressure on activated carbon-supported NiCl2–CuCl2 catalysts

In this paper, a series of metallic chloride catalysts supported on activated carbon are prepared. The results show that NiCl2/C has a high conversion of methanol, and CuCl2/C has a high selectivity to methyl acetate for methanol vapor-phase carbonylation without addition of any promoter in the feed. The results show that NiCl2–CuCl2/C has a higher activity and selectivity of methanol carbonylation than NiCl2/C, and the yield of methyl acetate increased by 25%. The optimum component of composite catalyst is 5% NiCl2 and 15% CuCl2. This novel NiCl2–CuCl2/C catalyst has high activity and good stability for methanol vapor-phase carbonylation. The reaction conditions are optimized as follows: reaction temperature of 573 K, methanol concentration of 14.5 mol% and carbon monoxide space velocity of 3000 L/(kgcat h). Under the optimum conditions, methanol conversion of 34.5% and carbonylation selectivity of 94.7 mol% are obtained. Structures of catalysts are characterized with SEM-EDS and XRD.