Research and application of a non-noble metal catalyst in the removal of trace olefins from aromatics

The hydrogenation catalyst plays an important role in removing trace olefins from aromatics. In this work, a Cu/ZnO/montmorillonite catalyst was developed. The Cu/ZnO/montmorillonite catalyst is not only comparable in performance to the noble metal Pt/montmorillonite catalyst, but also has greater potential because the activity of the catalyst at low hydrogen flow is almost the same as that at high hydrogen flow. Moreover, aromatic cracking will not occur under the action of the Cu/ZnO/montmorillonite catalyst. The activity of the modified catalyst used to remove olefins is stable at about 92% at low weight hourly space velocity (WHSV). The three functions of ZnO are summarized as follows: (i) Zinc oxide is beneficial to restore the BET surface area of the Cu-based catalyst. (ii) Zinc oxide can improve the amount of Cu that can be reduced by hydrogen. (iii) ZnO increases the grain size of Cu2(NO3)(OH)3, resulting in a higher reduction temperature for Cu-based catalysts.