Dehydration of Methanol to Dimethyl Ether using Y Zeolite Nano-catalyst Prepared via Hydrothermal Technique
Hamid Ghaffari
1
(
Shiraz university, faculty of advanced technologies
)
Mohamad Mahdi Zerafat
2
(
Faculty of Advanced Technologies, Nano Chemical Engineering Department, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
)
Sahar Foorginezhad
3
(
shiraz university, Faculty of advanced technolgies
)
الکلمات المفتاحية: Hydrothermal synthesis, Methanol Conversion, dimethyl ether, Y Nano-zeolite, Template Free,
ملخص المقالة :
Y-type zeolite can be considered among the most applied zeolites at industrial scale especially for catalytic transformations among various zeolites. Various synthesis techniques are employed to produce zeolite Y among which hydrothermal technique is considered as the most prevalent. In this study, synthesis of Y-type nano-zeolite was investigated through template-free hydrothermal technique. At various temperatures and aging times, zeolite Y was synthesized in the 10-30 nm size range with a first stage temperature of 25 °C and 87 °C as the second stage temperature. The as-synthesized zeolite was characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Field-Emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), Nitrogen adsorption–desorption, Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and NH3-TPD and utilized as the nano-catalyst in methanol to dimethyl ether (DME) conversion process. Based on the results, at 400 °C, 53.7 % conversion to DME was obtained with 100% purity using hydrogen form of zeolite Y (H-Y) nano-catalyst. Natural zeolite is also considered as a proper additive to economize the product.