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Formaldehyde is a chemical substance for which many diverse applications exist. It is produced on a large scale worldwide (about 20 million tons/year), and the fields of its possible use are broadening continuously.
Nowadays formaldehyde is produced mainly by methanol oxidative dehydrogenation over silver or iron-molybdenum catalysts. The side reactions of this process lead to high water content in the resulting mixture, and the reaction yield is relatively low. Formaldehyde extraction from water solutions and subsequent purging of process air from organic compounds are quite problematic from the technological viewpoint, as well as costly, since additional resources are required to prevent any potential explosion hazards.
As an alternative to existing commercial technologies of concentrated formaldehyde production, a direct non-oxidative dehydrogenation of methanol has been developed. Though this reaction has been known in chemistry for some time, its industrial application has so far not been possible, mainly due to the absence of efficient catalysts.
We have developed novel catalysts for direct non-oxidative methanol dehydrogenation into formaldehyde at high temperatures (800-900°), providing methanol conversion up to 90% and selectivity on formaldehyde up to 95%.
This method allows the recycling of the hydrogen by hydrogenating carbon dioxide into methanol, the latter being returned to the main process of formaldehyde production. In addition to its higher production efficiency, this process is ecologically superior to all known existing processes, since the utilization of atmospheric carbon dioxide causes a direct reduction of the greenhouse effect.
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