Alcohol-Treated Nickel-Aluminium Catalyst for One-Step Highly-Selective Butane-1,4-Diol Synthesis from 2-Butyne-1,4-Diol

The development of low-cost nickel-based catalysts for direct and selective hydrogenation of 2-butyne-1,4-diol (BYD) to butane-1,4-diol (BAD) under mild conditions is an important and attractive target both in fundamental research and industrialization but remains a formidable challenge. The primary industrial production method for BAD synthesis is a two-step reaction route, which suffers from complicated catalysis conditions and high equipment costs. Herein, we develop a high-performance catalyst via a facile alcohol-treated strategy for highly selective BAD synthesis at moderate operation conditions. The as-synthesized NA-80E catalyst exhibits outstanding BAD selectivity of 98.82 % and BYD conversion of 100 % at 60 °C and 4 MPa, outperforming most reported results for BAD formation in a one-step process and even being comparable to those obtained by the two-step hydrogenation reaction route under much high temperatures and pressures. Crucially, we found that after facile alcohol (ethanol) treatment, an intriguing phenomenon of suppression of adjacent acid-assisted hydrogenolysis via extra acidic Al species at the NiO-Al₂O₃ interface is observed, contributing to the precise enhancement of BAD selectivity by inhibiting the production of butanol (BOL). This facile alcohol-treated method along with the revealed mechanism of blocked hydrogenolysis opens vast possibilities for designing high-performance and highly-selective hydrogenation catalysts.