Improvement of Selectivity for Partial Hydrogenation of Benzene by Rare Earth Nitride Upon NH3 Treatment.

For the liquid-phase partial hydrogenation of benzene at 483 K, the selectivity toward cyclohexene was greatly improved upon treating rare earth nitride with ammonia. For YbN obtained by thermal decomposition of Yb(NH2)2 at 1173 K, the selectivity of the NH3-treated YbN was 75%, in contrast to nil for the untreated YbN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]