An evaluation of trimethyl phosphate on deactivation of Cu/Zn catalyst in hydrogenation of dodecyl methyl ester

The effect of trimethyl phosphate on Cu/Zn catalyst prepared by co-precipitation method for hydrogenation of methyl laurate to dodecanol in a slurry phase was studied using a stirred autoclave reactor system. The catalysts were characterized by means of XRD, EDS, XPS, SEM and BET. The results indicated that catalytic activity decreased with the increased amount of trimethyl phosphate. Correlating with the results from the above characterization, it was found that the main cause for the catalyst deactivation was the trimethyl phosphate occlusion of active sites by the physical adsorption and BET surface area decrement.