Nano CoO-Cu-MgO catalyst for vapor phase simultaneous synthesis of ortho-chloroaniline and γ-butyrolactone from ortho-cholonitrobenzne and 1,4-butanediol

Aiming at developing an efficient catalysts for simultanoius hydrogenation of o-chloronitrobenzene to o-chloroaniline and 1,4-butanediol dehydrogenation to  γ-butyrolactone. A series of CoO-Cu-MgO catalysts, composed of 10 wt% of copper, various amount of cobalt loadings (1, 5 and 10 wt%) and remaining of MgO were developed by co-precipitation followed by thermal treatment. o-Chloroaniline and γ-butyrolactone were the main products with high yield of 85% and 90%, respectively. The advantage of the coupling process is that the hydrogenation reaction was conducted without external hydrogen, indicating minimise the hydrogen consumption which is also known as hydrogen economy route. From N2O characterization results, the high activtiy of 5CoO-10Cu-MgO was found to have high amount of Cu species (Cu0/Cu+1) species and govern the stable activity and selectivity on time on stream study in presence of cobalt in Cu-MgO.