Catalytic performance of ZIF-derived metal catalysts for dimethyl carbonate synthesis from methanol

Both Fe-NC and Fe/NC*-950 show that the methanol conversion reached 4.5%, while the Fe-NC exhibited higher DMC selectivity (98.3%) than the Fe/NC*-950 (96.2%). By contrast, the methanol conversion over Fe/NC, Fe/NC* and other M-NC catalysts was all lower than 1%. Increasing the total reaction pressure or temperature could effectively promote the methanol conversion, and the DMC selectivity was hardly affected by reaction pressure; however, increasing reaction temperature accelerated side reactions and decreased DMC selectivity.

The apparent activation energy of Fe-NC was found to be 30.1 kJ·mol–1, much lower than that of conventional copper-based catalysts for this reaction. This study presents a novel approach to design and application of iron-based catalysts in oxidative carbonylation and hydroformylation of methanol.