Effect of Ni Reducibility on Anisole Hydrodeoxygenation Activity in the La-Ni/γ-Al2O3 Catalytic System
Abstract The effect of lanthanum addition on the activity of a series of Ni/γ-Al2O3 catalysts for anisole hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) was evaluated. Catalyst characterization using hydrogen temperature-programmed reduction (H2-TPR) and UV-visible spectroscopy suggests that lanthanum incorporation results in the formation of larger metallic Ni domains in the catalyst surface, which in turn favour the direct anisole hydrogenation pathway to methoxycyclohexane. Despite the improvements to reducibility that resulted from the incorporation of La, the catalysts displayed lower selectivity towards cyclohexane, independent of total nickel loading. The catalytic activity results were rationalized in terms of a proposed reaction pathway where anisole is initially hydrogenated followed by sequential deoxygenation steps.