Amination of Ethylene Glycol to Ethylenediamine Catalyzed by Co‐Cu/γ‐Al2O3

Abstract Ethylenediamine is an important organic chemical and commercially produced from non‐renewable starting material. In the present work, amination of ethylene glycol to ethylenediamine was studied using an aqueous ammonia as ammonia source. A series of supported bimetallic catalysts were prepared by impregnation method and characterized by means of H 2 ‐TPR, H 2 ‐TPD, XRD, XPS and N 2 adsorption‐desorption. Their catalytic performance for amination of ethylene glycol was investigated and Co−Cu/γ‐Al 2 O 3 catalyst exhibited high activity and good selectivity to ethylenediamine. There exists obvious interaction and synergistic effect between Cu and Co in Co−Cu/γ‐Al 2 O 3 for lowering catalyst reduction temperature and improving catalytic performance separately. The selectivity of ethylenediamine and ethanolamine respectively attained 45.7 % and 23.7 % at an ethylene glycol conversion of 41.5 % under the suitable reaction conditions. On this basis, a majority of by‐products in the amination of ethylene glycol were identified by gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry analysis and a reaction network was proposed.