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

The article aims at developing an efficient and stable catalysts for simultaneous 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, demonstrating minimize the hydrogen consumption known as hydrogen economy route. From N2O characterization results, the high activity of 5CoO-10Cu-MgO was found that it has high amount of Cu species (Cu0/Cu+1) which govern the stable activity and selectivity on time on stream study in presence of cobalt in Cu-MgO.