Selective synthesis of butadiene directly from aqueous ethanol over high performance multifunctional catalyst based on ZnZrSi oxide system

The selective synthesis of butadiene with high active and productivity from renewable aqueous ethanol has always been a bottleneck. Here, we report a high performance multifunctional catalyst based on ZnZrSi oxide system for direct conversion of aqueous ethanol to butadiene with a competitive productivity of 580 g⋅kg_cat.⁻¹⋅h⁻¹ at 400 °C and WHSV of 3.03 h⁻¹ compared to previously reported catalysts. Meanwhile, it also had outstanding ethanol conversion of 91.7% and butadiene selectivity of 60.5% at 400 °C and WHSV of 0.77 h⁻¹, which remained stable during 80 h on time. To further investigate the relationship between the physicochemical properties and catalytic performance, the synthesized catalysts were optimized and further analyzed by multiple characterization techniques. The characterization results indicated that the optimized catalyst possessed excellent ability of water tolerance and suitable acid-base properties. Importantly, the rationally designed multifunctional catalyst could effectively synergize with various active centers to achieve the maximum production of butadiene from aqueous ethanol.