Ni catalyst supported on nitrogen-doped activated carbon for selective hydrogenation of acetylene with high concentration

Ethylene is a widely used industrial raw material. Due to petroleum resources shortage, direct hydrogenation of acetylene by calcium carbide to ethylene has attracted much attention. Accordingly, Ni/AC-N-x catalyst was synthesized by a simple impregnation method to investigate how the support's N-content influenced the catalyst performance. We studied the support-metal interactions by temperature-programmed reduction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and the changes were studied. The acetylene conversion remained at ~96% for 10 h at 200 °C under a high gas hourly space velocity of 4000 mL·g −1 ·h −1 over Ni/AC-N-0.5 while over Ni/AC, the acetylene conversion decreased to 29% in 10 h. • Nitrogen-doped activated carbon support was synthesized by a simple impregnation method • The stability of the Ni catalyst was improved with nitrogen doped carbon as support • The enhancement of the Ni/AC-N was attributed to interaction between the Ni and AC-N support