Hydrodeoxygenation of phenol over zirconia supported Pd bimetallic catalysts. The effect of second metal on catalyst performance

This work investigated the effect of the addition of a second metal (Cu, Ag, Zn, Sn) on the performance of Pd/ZrO2 catalyst for HDO of phenol at 573 K in the gas phase. The incorporation of dopants resulted in the formation of Pd-X (Cu, Ag, Zn) alloys, which reduced the reaction rate for HDO and increased the selectivity to hydrogenation products (cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol). For PdSn/ZrO2, alloying was also observed but tin oxide was still present on the surface after reduction at 773 K. For Pd/ZrO2 and PdSn/ZrO2, the oxophilic sites represented by Zr and Sn cations promotes the hydrogenation of the carbonyl group of the keto-tautomer intermediate formed, producing benzene as the main product. All catalysts significantly deactivated during the reaction but the deactivation degree depended on the type of the metal. Pd/ZrO2 and PdZn/ZrO2 and PdAg/ZrO2 exhibited approximately the same deactivation degree. However, the loss of activity was less pronounced for PdSn/ZrO2 catalyst. Pd dispersion significantly decreased during the reaction, indicating that the sintering of Pd particles is one of the causes for catalyst deactivation.