Direct synthesis of mesoporous nitrogen doped Ru-carbon catalysts with semi-embedded Ru nanoparticles for acetylene hydrochlorination

Ordered mesoporous nitrogen doped carbon catalyst containing ruthenium nanoparticles (Ru-N-OMC) was directly synthesized by using RuCl3/SBA-15 as a hard template. Ruthenium particles with a narrow size distribution in the range of 1.5–2.5 nm are uniformly semi-embedded in the carbon matrix without aggregation and pore blocking. Urea was used as nitrogen source carbonized with sucrose, resulting in about 3 wt% nitrogen doped carbon catalyst and more than 70% nitrogen was quaternary N species. The doping nitrogen and Ru nanoparticles are both active sites for acetylene hydrochlorination. Compared with Ru-OMC catalyst without nitrogen, this Ru-N-OMC catalyst shows a better performance and stability in the acetylene hydrochlorination for vinyl chloride monomer production.