Synthesis of furan resin-based mesoporous carbon spheres and application in EDC catalytic cracking

<p indent="0mm">Furfuryl alcohol resin exhibits hydrophobicity after polymerization, making it challenging to directly use hydrophilic silica templates in the synthesis of mesoporous carbon spheres. To address this issue, a series of silica nanoparticles with different particle sizes were prepared by adjusting the hydrolysis conditions of tetraethyl orthosilicate. Following hydrophobic modification, they were successfully introduced as hard templates into poly-furfuryl alcohol resin spheres to prepare mesoporous carbon spheres with different pore size. The structural characteristics during the synthesis of mesoporous carbon spheres were characterized and analyzed using solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). In the catalytic cracking of ethylene dichloride (EDC) to produce vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), the introduced mesoporous structure demonstrated better reaction stability and performance to the microporous structure in enhancing catalyst stability due to its resistance to carbon deposition.