An efficient ZrO₂–doped Cu/SiO₂ catalyst was fabricated through hydrolysis precipitation method (HP) and used to produce ethylene glycol (EG) through dimethyl oxalate (DMO) hydrogenation. The states for zirconia on copper catalyst and roles in DMO hydrogenation were investigated through various characterization tools, including N₂ physical adsorption, XRD, H₂–TPR, Methyl glycolate–TPD–MS, XPS, XAES as well. Compared with common ammonia evaporation and co–precipitation methods used in catalyst preparation, this HP method is found to effectively suppress the agglomeration and further size growth of copper nanoparticles by enhancing the interactions between copper and zirconia species. More importantly, uniform distribution of ZrO₂ dopant is achieved due to the pseudo-homogeneous reactions in the mixing step of catalyst preparation. A proper amount of zirconium dopant helps achieve the desirable proportion of Cu⁺/(Cu⁺+Cu⁰) for surface copper species, especially promotes the production of Cu⁺ species originated from Cu–ZrO₂ species at the interface of copper and zirconia particles. In comparison with Cu⁺ species formed from copper phyllosilicates reduction, the Cu⁺ sites derived from Cu–ZrO₂ species show higher adsorption ability of MG, an important intermediate species in ethylene glycol production. These adsorbed MG molecules further react with atomic hydrogen shifted from adjacent metallic copper surface, leading to a higher catalytic behavior. For the EG production via DMO hydrogenation, the turnover frequency (TOF) normalized by Cu⁰ species on CuZr/SiO₂ catalyst is 1.8 times than that of traditional Cu/SiO₂ counterpart. Due to the enhanced synergy effect between Cu⁺ and Cu⁰ active sites, a lower activation energy of ester hydrogenation on this ZrO₂–doped Cu/SiO₂ catalyst is believed to be responsible for the significant improvement.

通过水解沉淀法（HP）制备了一种高效ZrO ₂掺杂的Cu / SiO ₂催化剂，并通过草酸二甲酯（DMO）加氢制备乙二醇（EG）。通过各种表征工具，包括N ₂物理吸附，XRD，H ₂ -TPR，乙醇酸甲酯-TPD-MS，XPS，XAES，研究了铜催化剂上氧化锆的状态及其在DMO加氢中的作用。与催化剂制备中常用的氨蒸发和共沉淀方法相比，该HP方法通过增强铜和氧化锆物种之间的相互作用，可有效抑制铜纳米颗粒的团聚和进一步的尺寸增长。更重要的是ZrO的均匀分布由于在催化剂制备的混合步骤中的准均相反应，获得了_2种掺杂剂。适量的锆掺杂剂有助于实现表面铜物种所需的Cu ⁺ /（Cu ⁺ + Cu ⁰）比例，特别是促进铜和氧化锆颗粒界面处源自Cu–ZrO ₂物种的Cu ⁺物种的产生。与由层状硅酸铜还原形成的Cu ⁺物种相比，源自Cu–ZrO ₂的Cu ⁺位点物种显示出较高的吸附能力，MG是乙二醇生产中的重要中间物种。这些吸附的MG分子进一步与从相邻金属铜表面移出的原子氢反应，从而导致更高的催化性能。对于通过DMO加氢生产的EG，由Cu ⁰物种在CuZr / SiO ₂催化剂上归一化的转换频率（TOF）是传统Cu / SiO ₂对应物的1.8倍。由于增强了Cu ⁺和Cu ⁰活性位之间的协同作用，因此，在这种ZrO ₂掺杂的Cu / SiO ₂催化剂上，较低的酯加氢活化能被认为是重要的改进。