Hydroxyapatite nanowires rich in [Ca-O-P] sites for ethanol direct coupling showing high C6-12 alcohol yield.

Herein, we have shown that the [Ca-O-P] sites exposed on hydroxyapatite are clearly responsible for C-C formation in ethanol direct-coupling, and their high density accelerates the C-C coupling rate and boosts C6-12 alcohol production. Notably, nanowire-like hydroxyapatite exhibited 30.4% selectivity to n-butanol and 63.9% selectivity to C6-12OH at a conversion of 45.7% at 325 °C, and thereby close to 30% yield of C6-12OH, which is greatly higher than that using the state-of-the-art catalysts (6%).