Effects of Carriers on Amination of Ethanol to Acetonitrile over Catalysts Loaded with Cu

In this study, we first purposefully synthesized SAPO-11 and Na-ZSM-23 molecular sieves. The catalysts loaded with Cu were prepared by using seven typical carriers, including Montmorillonite-K10, USY, SAPO-11, Na-ZSM-23, γ-Al 2 O 3 , ZnO and MgO, and the performance of the catalysts was tested for amination of ethanol. The results demonstrate that the acid-base property of the carriers is closely related with the results of amination of ethanol over the catalysts. Among all these catalysts, 15%Cu/Na-ZSM-23 shows the highest yield of acetonitrile.