Effect of Mordenite Catalyst types on Dehydration of Methanol to Dimethyl Ether

The conversion of methanol to dimethyl ether was carried out over various commercial mordenite and ionexchanged catalysts to evaluate the catalytic performance of mordenite catalysts with different pore structures and acidities. These catalysts were compared for their catalytic properties in a fixed-bed reactor at 1atm, 573K and LHSV of 2.84h-1. The catalysts were characterized by BET, ICP, NH3-TPD, XRD, TGA and FT-IR techniques. The ion-exchanged mordenite showed higher activity, selectivity and good stability in dehydration of methanol due to the addition of medium acid-sites. Also, the effect of water on the catalyst deactivation was investigated over two selected catalysts in order to develop a suitable catalyst for synthesis of dimethyl ether. It was found that H-MOR40 (MCDH-1) catalyst was more active and less deactivated than other one in a feed containing 20wt% water.

Keywords:

Methanol Dehydration , Dimethyl ether , Mordenite Catalyst