Shigeru Terada

124 Selective oxidation of 1, 3-butadiene to furan over molybdenum based catalysts

Publisher Summary Furan (FRN) is a potential intermediate chemical, which can easily be hydrogenated to tetrahydrofuran (THF) and can be transformed to 1,4-butanediol (BDO) in the presence of H2 and H2O. If furan could be produced in one-step reaction from C4 hydrocarbon feed stocks, it would be an attractive route to manufacture THF and BDO via furan. Molybdenum containing catalyst is one of the most promising catalysts for the partial oxidation of 1,3-butadiene (BD) to furan. Molybdenum oxide and some molybdates on SiO2 catalysts exhibit high furan selectivity for vapor phase oxidation. Bismuth molybdate was selected as an active phase after the first screening test. The effects of catalyst composition and silica content were investigated extensively. Multi component catalyst, BiPbSbVMoOx/SiO2 exhibited high selectivity to furan at lower conversion. But the selectivity decreased rapidly with the increase in conversion. MoO3/SiO2 catalyst by impregnation exhibited relatively high activity however furan selectivity was insufficient, about 30%. Higher BD conversion was achieved, when MoO3/SiO2 catalyst was modified by vanadium. However furan selectivity was decreased by V addition.