An Effective Synthesis of Phosphated Silica (PO4/SÍO2) Catalyst and its Performance for Converting Ethanol into Diethyl Ether (DEE)

Research on phosphated silica (PO4/SiO2) as a heterogeneous acid catalyst in the dehydration reaction of ethanol into diethyl ether has been carried out. The PO4/SiO2 was prepared from TEOS by a wet impregnation method with various concentrations of H3PO4 (1, 2, 3, 4 M) and calcination temperatures (400, 500, and 600 °C) to obtain it with an optimum acidity. Afterward, the catalysts were characterized by FTIR, XRD, SEM-EDX, SAA, and TG-DTA. Ethanol dehydration was run using a fixed-batch reactor with a flow of N2 gas, and GC determined the selectivity of diethyl ether. The PS-4-400 catalyst had the highest activity and selectivity in the ethanol dehydration to diethyl ether at a temperature of 225 °C, with a conversion of 58.00% and a DEE selectivity of 3.71%.