Technical Study of the silver-catalyzed methanol oxidation to formaldehyde

Min Qian

ISBN 978-3-8325-0765-7
228 Seiten, Erscheinungsjahr: 2004
Preis: 40.50 €

Formaldehyde is one of the world's most important chemicals. Although the silver-catalyzed process of formaldehyde synthesis from methanol has been industrialized for nearly one century, there still remain unsolved questions about the mechanistic details of reaction.

The oxidation of methanol to formaldehyde goes through a methoxy intermediate. The methoxy is generated from the dissociation of the methanol molecule in the presence of atomic surface oxygen. The methoxy decomposes to formaldehyde.

Microkinetic modelling is an emerging area of research that has already demonstrated success in bridging surface science and catalysis studies for several different industrial catalytic reactions. The development of computer technology in the 1980s was an important milestone for the laboratory technology. Assisted by some modern software integrated by many commercialized modules, a number of adsorption- and reaction models were simulated and estimated. Another goal of the present work is the mathematic expression of the silver-catalyzed formaldehyde synthesis from methanol under near industrial condition. Based on the reaction mechanism, two different kinetic models were supposed and subsequently estimated with the commercial software gProms.

The investigation on the titled reaction was carried out progressively not only with more comprehensive experimented study but also with the kinetic modelling corresponding to reaction mechanism.