Biogasoline and high alcohols production by one step ethanol conversion on densified MgO catalyst with enhanced concentration of surface active sites

Ethanol conversion was carried out on two MgO catalysts that differ in concentration of surface basic sites by a factor of 4. The sites density was increased by chemical densification of MgO-aerogel, which created high-angle grain boundaries defect areas between its nanocrystals. The process using the novel catalytic material converted ethanol in one step to biofuel containing paraffins, olefins, aromatics, and oxygenates with ≈ 50% yield. This improved performance was ascribed to enhanced trapping of hydrogen entities formed at the surface after dissociative adsorption of alcohols molecules at the defect sites produced by densification. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 7th European Congress of Chemical Engineering-7 and 19th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering CHISA (Prague, Czech Republic 8/28/2010-9/1/2010).