Monometallic platinum and palladium-based catalysts in the competitive oxidation of methanol over the liquid-phase methanol-ethanol mixtures

This work explored the catalytic performances of monometallic platinum and palladium-based catalysts applied in the competitive oxidation reaction of methanol in presence of ethanol as a possible quality control in counterfeit alcohol production. Pt and Pd over different supports like alumina, SBA-15, as well as faujasite type Y (FAU-Y) and ZSM-5 zeolites were applied in the competitive oxidation reaction of methanol and ethanol (equimolar amounts in 20 mL aqueous solution) with the addition of two kinds of oxidants (hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and pure O-2 gas) for sake of evaluating the alcohols oxidation effect. The results showed that Pt/FAU-Y catalyst had the best performance, due to the molecular size difference between methanol and ethanol and the negligible diffusivity of ethanol through the small pore faujasite, the optimized Pt active sites can be fully accessed by the methanol molecule.