Hydrogenation of phenol to cyclohexanone over electrospun Pd/PEI catalyst

Cyclohexanone is an industrial chemical that is used to produce important materials such as Nylon 6 and Nylon 66. Cyclohexanone can be produced through gas phase or liquid phase hydrogenation of phenol. Separation and purification of the cyclohexanone from other reaction products  is a challenge due to low selectivity of most reaction routes. Separation of catalyst particles from the reaction solution also affects the overall process performance by adding additional processing steps. Both of these challenges are addressed in this paper.  Electrospinning and wet impregnation methods were combined together to prepare palladium supported on Polyetherimide nanofibers (Pd/PEI). The Pd/PEI supported catalysts were characterized using SEM, TEM, XRD, DSI and Frazer test. Conversion exceeding 80% was achieved with >99.9% selectivity within 9 hours at around atmospheric hydrogen pressure and 80°C.