Deoxygenation of benzofuran in supercritical water over a platinum catalyst

This study reports the results of the catalytic deoxygenation of 2,3-benzofuran in supercritical water over a 5. wt% platinum on activated carbon catalyst. We examine the effect of batch-holding time, water loading, hydrogen loading, and catalyst loading on the reaction products. The major products were 2-ethylphenol, ethylbenzene, ethylcyclohexanone, ethylcyclohexanol, and ethylcyclohexane. Increasing the water loading or decreasing the hydrogen loading decreases the selectivity to aromatic deoxygenated products (e.g. ethylbenzene) and increases the selectivity to hydrogenated deoxygenated products (e.g. ethylcyclohexane). Combining the results from these benzofuran experiments with results obtained in separate experiments with the above-mentioned reaction products as the starting reagent allowed for the development of the hydrothermal deoxygenation reaction network. The reaction network provided a foundation for a quantitative kinetic model that correlated the experimental results. The model showed that the experimental results were consistent with benzofuran having an inhibitory effect on the deoxygenation of ethylphenol to ethylbenzene.