Booming
biodiesel production worldwide demands valorization of its byproduct of
glycerol.
Acrolein, an important intermediate chemical, can be produced by gas-phase
glycerol dehydration catalyzed by solid
acids. Because catalysts that lead to high
acrolein selectivity usually deactivate rapidly due to the formation of
coke that blocks the active sites on their surface, one major challenge of this method is how to extend the service life of the catalyst.
Silica-supported
silicotungstic acid (HSiW-Si) is a good example of such a catalyst that shows good activity in
glycerol dehydration to
acrolein initially, but deactivates quickly. In this study, HSiW-Si was selected to probe the potential of using non-
thermal plasma with
oxygen-containing gas as the discharge gas (NTP-O2) to solve the catalyst deactivation problem. NTP-O2 was found to be effective in
coke removal and catalyst regeneration at low temperatures without damaging the Keggin structure of the HSiW-Si catalyst.