Thermodynamic analysis of liquid phase in situ hydrogenation of glycerol for 1,3-propanediol synthesis

Abstract

Based on the combination of the glycerol aqueous-phase reforming (APR) and catalytic hydrogenation of glycerol, a novel reaction system of liquid phase in situ hydrogenation of glycerol for the synthesis of 1,3-propanediol is proposed, in which hydrogen is produced from glycerol aqueous-phase reforming in the same reactor. In this new system, the glycerol is the raw material of the aqueous-phase reforming reaction; the hydrogen generated from the APR of glycerol can be quickly transformed to the in situ hydrogenation of glycerol to produce 1,3-propanediol, which can improve the selectivity of hydrogen for the APR process of glycerol. Moreover, thermodynamic calculation of the coupling processes was carried out, and standard molar enthalpies and equilibrium constants of foregoing reactions were obtained. The above calculation results indicate that the combination process is feasible for 1,3-propanediol synthesis.

Key words： glycerol; aqueous-phase reforming; 1,3-propanediol; in-situ reduction

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the financial support of the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2009AA05Z444).

C	heat capacity, J/mol·K
G	free Gibbs energy, kJ/mol
H	enthalpy, kJ/mol
Kp	equilibrium constant using partial pressure of reaction constituents.
Subscripts
i	representing the constituent of the system
R	refers to the change of the thermodynamics property during the chemical reaction
Greek symbols
Δ change in a property upon a change in state or completion of a reaction

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