Hydrogenation of dimethyl oxalate to ethylene glycol over Cu/SiO2 catalysts

Ethylene Glycol (EG) has received growing attention due to its potential use as a multi-purpose chemical Cu-based catalyst was investigated owing to its high activity in the EG production. In this paper, Cu/SiOι catalysts were prepared by deposition precipitation methods. The reaction performance of gas-phase hydrogenation of dimethyl oxalate (DMO) to ethylene glycol (EG) over the catalysts was evaluated in a fix-bed reactor. The Cu/SiO₂ catalyst was evaluated at different reaction temperatures, molar ratios of H/DMO and LHSV to optimize the catalyst reaction conditions. Under proper conditions, for the reaction pressure at 2MPa, temperature at 203°C, H₂/DMO mole ratio at 60 and LHSV at 0.8 h^-1, the DMO conversion was 100% with EG selectivity of 94.1%.