Preparation and Characterization of Sugar Based Catalyst on Various Supports

Abstract

A novel structured carbon-based acid catalyst was prepared by depositing the carbon precursor onto glass, ceramic and aluminum supports via dip-coating method, followed by carbonization process for converting the d-glucose layer into black carbon char in an inert nitrogen environment at 400 °C. Then, the –SO3H group was introduced into the framework of the carbon char by multiple vapor phase sulfonation. Four different carbonization methods were carried out (dry pyrolysis and hydrothermal carbonization with or without pressurized) in the catalyst preparation while among the carbonization methods, the samples which prepared from dry pyrolysis without pressurized process showed the strong acidity due to highest adsorption of acid group in the catalyst surface although the catalyst attached onto the support was the least compared to other preparation methods. Among the catalysts, the sulfonated carbon-base catalyst that is attached on the ceramic support exhibited the highest aci-dity (1.327 mmol/g) followed by the catalyst deposited on the glass (0.917 mmol/g) and aluminum (0.321 mmol/g) supports. The porous structure of ceramic surface, allowed a better interaction between reactants and –SO3H site in the carbon. Through the FT-IR analysis, it was observed that the functional groups –COOH, –OH, and –SO3H were present in the active sites of the catalysts. The surface areas of glass (Si–SC), ceramic (Ce–SC) and aluminum (Al–SC) catalysts were larger than 1 m2/g, whereas the pore size belongs to macroporous as the average pore size is more than 50 nm. It is also stable within the temperature of 400 °C as there was less than 10% weight loss revealed from the TGA analysis.

Keywords

• structured sulfonated carbon-base acid catalyst
• sugar catalyst
• catalyst support
• carbonization
• multiple phase vapor sulfonation