Catalytic Hydrogenation of 2-Ethylanthraquinone Using an in Situ Synthesized Pd Catalyst

An in situ synthesized Pd catalyst with egg-shell structure was employed to catalyze the hydrogenation of 2-ethylanthraquinone in a fixed bed. The effects of residence time, gas to liquid phase ratio, reaction temperature and Pd loading amounts on the yield and hydrogenation efficiency were investigated specifically. The yield and hydrogenation efficiency attained values of 35.5% and 6.6 g/L using the optimum Pd loading amount of 0.32%, respectively, with a residence time of less than 4 seconds exhibiting excellent catalytic activity. Meanwhile, within the temperature range of 50 ℃ to 70 ℃, the Thiele modulus and effective internal diffusion factors were calculated to be about 0.008 to 0.033 and 0.9996 to 0.9999, respectively, which indicates that the prepared catalyst with egg-shell structure weaken the internal diffusion resistance effectively and is suitable for fast reactions. The maximum space time yield value reached up to 567.5 g_H2O2 g_Pd^-1 h^-1 and was much higher than reported results from other literature.