Effect of calcination temperature on performance of K-Cu/Zn/La/ZrO2 for isobutanol synthesis

In this paper, the K-promoted Cu/Zn/La/ZrO2 catalysts were prepared by co-precipitation methods, and the hydrogenation of CO was used as the probe reaction to investigate the catalytic performance. The structure and surface properties of K-Cu/Zn/La/ZrO2 catalysts were characterized by XRD, TG, BET, NH3-TPD, H2-TPR, Raman and XPS techniques respectively. The results indicated that the relationship between the structure, specific surface and catalyst activity was not significant, and the strong acidic sites of catalyst surface were not suitable for the formation of isobutanol. But the results indicated that the synergy among Cu-Zn-Zr would have an important effect on the activity of K-Cu/Zn/La/ZrO2 catalysts. When the calcinations temperature was 450°C, the synergistic effect of Cu-Zn-Zr was strongest so that the CuO could be reduced easily. Under the optimum calcination temperature, the conversion of CO reached 69.47%, the selectivity of isobutanol approached 19.09%, and the primary products were methanol and isobutanol that was 95.02% of the alcohol products.