Recent advances in thermocatalytic acetylene selective hydrogenation
Selective acetylene hydrogenation is a crucial reaction for purifying ethylene in the petroleum industry and presents a promising non-oil route for producing ethylene by integrating acetylene production from natural gas and coal. Despite significant advancements in catalyst development, achieving bo...
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| Published in | Chemical Society reviews Vol. 54; no. 16; pp. 7654 - 775 |
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| Main Authors | , , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
England
Royal Society of Chemistry
11.08.2025
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| Subjects | |
| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Selective acetylene hydrogenation is a crucial reaction for purifying ethylene in the petroleum industry and presents a promising non-oil route for producing ethylene by integrating acetylene production from natural gas and coal. Despite significant advancements in catalyst development, achieving both high catalytic activity and ethylene selectivity remains challenging due to competing side reactions, including over-hydrogenation to ethane, C–C coupling leading to oligomers, and C–C bond cleavage resulting in coke formation. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent progress in the development of catalysts and understanding of reaction mechanism for acetylene hydrogenation to ethylene. Firstly, benchmarks for conversion and selectivity calculation are critically discussed. Then, research on active site design is categorized into monometallic sites, disordered alloy sites, intermetallic compound (IMC) sites, and single-atom (SA) sites, with a distinction between Pd-based and non-Pd-based catalysts. This categorization highlights the active site design strategies and summarizes state-of-the-art performance metrics. Emphasis is placed on the structure–performance relationships and the role of different active metals in enhancing ethylene selectivity and catalytic activity. In addition, the roles of catalyst support and modifiers are reviewed. Finally, we discuss challenges and future research directions in mechanistic understanding and catalyst design, aiming to guide further innovations in this important field.
This review highlights recent advances in acetylene selective hydrogenation, focusing on active site engineering, support/modifier effects, reaction media, and future directions for achieving high performance and industrial relevance. |
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| Bibliography: | Dr Tiefeng Wang is a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Tsinghua University. He received his PhD from Tsinghua University in 2004 and was a visiting professor at the University of Delaware from 2010 to 2011. His research focuses on heterogeneous catalysis, multiphase flow reactors, and clean energy chemical engineering. He has published over 280 papers and holds more than 40 patents. He has developed several industrialized technologies, including a partial oxidation reactor for natural gas and a slurry reactor for methyl methacrylate (MMA) synthesis, which have been successfully implemented in industry. Dr Jingguang G. Chen is the Thayer Lindsley Professor of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University, with a joint appointment at Brookhaven National Laboratory. His research interests include fundamental understanding of carbides, nitrides and bimetallic catalysts for applications in thermocatalysis and electrocatalysis. His research group utilizes a combination of experimental studies, in situ characterization and density functional theory calculations. Dr Xiaocheng Lan is an Assistant Researcher in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Tsinghua University. He received his bachelor's and doctoral degrees in Chemical Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2014 and 2019, respectively. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Tsinghua University from 2019 to 2021. His research focuses on heterogeneous catalysis and slurry bed reactors for fine chemistry and renewable energy. ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 14 ObjectType-Review-3 content type line 23 |
| ISSN: | 0306-0012 1460-4744 1460-4744 |
| DOI: | 10.1039/d4cs01237b |