Activity of nanocasted oxides for gas-phase dehydration of glycerol

Abstract A series of nanocasted oxides were synthesised, and an analysis using basicity measurements provided evidence that low strength basic sites with high accessibility favoured the production of 1-hydroxyacetone from glycerol dehydration. Among the oxides studied (e.g., CeO 2 , ZrO 2 , and TiO 2 ), the best results were obtained for a CeO 2 –ZrO 2 binary oxide (activity = 3 × 10 −6  mmol g −1  h −1 ), which revealed that a moderate basicity allowed acid–base cooperativity in the Ce 0.8 Zr 0.2 O 2 phase to produce 1-hydroxyacetone. Indeed, TEM, Raman, XPS and SEM-EDX analyses and textural properties showed that these features influenced the activity of the catalyst towards glycerol conversion by preventing coking.