The processes of catalytic dehydrogenation of primary alcohols to aldehydes have been the subject of interest of many research groups. However, in the presence of certain catalytic systems, the aldehydes formed undergo further conversions. One of the possible reactions is the further oxidation of aldehydes to acids whose mechanism depends on the character of surface species of the catalysts . Another reaction is formation of esters that might transfer to ketones. Formation of ketones through ester is attributed to basic centres. The potential industrial application of the primary alcohols conversion prompted the search for new active catalytic systems based on ruthenium. This paper reports results of a study of the performance of ZnO-Al 2 O 3 mixed oxide prepared in various ways and ruthenium catalysts based on them in the reaction of n -butanol conversion. The operational factors such as reaction temperature, n-butanol feed flow rate, calcinations temperature of the support, and time of stream are discussed. The highest conversion was obtained with a 4 wt.% ruthenium on ZnO-Al 2 O 3 with 35 wt.% aluminum (75%). The optimum catalyst was used to determine the best working conditions for dehydrogenation reaction in the temperature range of 498-723 K.
