Effects of Ethanol Co-feeding in Higher Alcohols Synthesis from Syngas over K-MoS2 Catalyst

In this work, the effect of ethanol co-feeding in the synthesis of higher alcohols from syngas over K-MoS2 catalyst was investigated in a batch reactor, and the yield of higher alcohols was improved. K-MoS2 prepared with thiourea as a sulfur source exhibited better performance for synthesizing higher alcohols from syngas due to its more stacking layers, higher specific surface area and more Mo4+ active species. Ethanol co-feeding could provide more alkyl intermediate species, which was conducive to the insertion of CO, thereby promoting the conversion of CO and the production of higher alcohols. A change in the reaction path from insertion of CO to homocoupling of ethanol was found upon increasing the ethanol to CO ratio. Higher alcohols production was maximized with the side products in an acceptable range for n EtOH/n CO = 0.3. [GRAPHICS] .