Mercury-Free Catalyst Preparation for Acetylene Hydrochlorination and it’s Catalytic Performance on Single-Tube Pilot Unit Compared with HgCl2 Catalyst

Abstract

The mercury-free catalyst of Au-Cu-K/AC was prepared in a 10 L autoclave and characterized by ICP-AES, BET, SEM and TEM. The comparison test for hydrochlorination of acetylene with an industrial HgCl₂ catalyst was conducted in a single-tube pilot unit with paralleled reactors under the same experimental conditions. The characterization results show that the mercury-free catalyst of Au-Cu-K/AC has a micropore structure, the particle size of the active component of 4 nm and loaded components enhance in HCl adsorption and desorption temperature. The catalytic tests indicate that the vinyl chloride monomer selectivity of mercury-free catalyst for Au-Cu-K/AC is more than 99 % which equal to that of the industrial HgCl₂ catalyst. The C₂H₂ conversion of industrial HgCl₂ catalyst is more than 98 % in the first 900 h, but declines in the following 700 h; while the conversion of C₂H₂ by mercury-free catalyst reduced slowly from 98 to 89 % in the whole 1600 h on stream, thus the mercury-free catalyst has a better stability.