A New Coated Catalyst for the Production of Diacetone Alcohol via Catalytic Distillation

A method has been developed for the production of catalytically active coated ceramic distillation saddles for use in catalytic distillation (CD) columns. A thin layer of magnesium acetate was applied to ceramic Norton saddles using a sol-gel dip-coating method. The magnesium acetate coating was converted to the catalytically active magnesium oxide (MgO) via a temperature-ramped calcination program. The kinetic performance of the MgO-coated saddles for the aldol condensation of acetone was determined in a batch reactor and a batch CD column. Although the coated saddles provided lower yields to DAA than Amberlite IRA-900 ion exchange resins in a batch reactor, their improved mass transfer characteristics provided higher yields than the same ion exchange resins held inside fiberglass bags in a CD column at low flow rates. The coated saddles also showed significant improvements in selectivity to DAA compared to the resin catalysts for the aldol condensation reaction carried out both in the batch reactor and in the CD column.