Coking kinetics and influence of reaction-regeneration on acidity, activity and deactivation of Zn/HZSM-5 catalyst during methanol aromatization

The coking kinetics and reaction-regeneration on Zn/HZSM-5 （Zn/HZ） catalyst in the conversion of methanol to aromatics were investigated. The highest initial benzene, toluene and xylene （BTX） yield of ca. 67.7% was obtained on fresh Zn/HZ catalyst, which showed the worst catalytic stability. The cycle of reaction-regeneration significantly modified the texture and acidity of Zn/HZ catalyst, which in turn affected its catalytic performance and coking behavior in methanol conversion to BTX. The residual carbon located on the surface of Zn/HZ catalyst led to the decrease of acid sites and the change on the acid sites distribution, which played an important roles on its activity and deactivation. It was found that the high B/L ratio and the low total acid sites concentration of the Zn/HZ catalyst favored to the high BTX yield and good catalytic stability in methanol conversion.

3D coarse-grained DPM simulation of the MIP reaction-regeneration loop

The reactor-regenerator loop is the core facility of the maximizing iso-paraffin(MIP)process.Although the discrete particle method(DPM)simulation can provide detailed information at the particle scale,it has been unable to simulate such a complex loop system due to limitations of coarse-grained(CG)models,computing software,and hardware.In this study,a newly proposed soft-shell CG-DPM model with a CG ratio of up to 800 is used to simulate a 3.5 Mt/a industrial-scale MIP reactor-regenerator loop.The solid fraction distribution obtained is found to agree well with in-situ measurements.Hydrodynamic properties including the distribution of solid fraction,gas and solid velocity,standard derivation of solid fraction with time,temporal distribution of the flow field,and particle residence time distribution are measured in the simulation,which are meaningful to better design and operate such systems in the future.

Oxidation of benzene to phenol with N_(2)O over a hierarchical Fe/ZSM-5 catalyst

Catalytic oxidation of benzene with N_(2)O to phenol over the hierarchical and microporous Fe/ZSM-5-based catalysts in a continuous fixedbed reactor was investigated.The spent catalyst was in-situ regenerated by an oxidative treatment using N_(2)O and in total 10 reaction-regeneration cycles were performed.A 100% N_(2)O conversion,93.3% phenol selectivity,and high initial phenol formation rate of 16.49±0.06mmol_(phenol gcatalyst)^(-1)h^(-1)at time on stream(TOS) of 5 min,and a good phenol productivity of 147.06 mmol_(phenol gcatalyst)^(-1)during catalyst lifetime of 1800 min were obtained on a fresh hierarchical Fe/ZSM-5-Hi2.8 catalyst.With the reaction-regeneration cycle,N_(2)O conversion is fully recovered within TOS of 3 h,moreover,the phenol productivity was decreased ca.2.2±0.8% after each cycle,leading to a total phenol productivity of ca.0.44 ton_(pheol kg_(catalyst)^(-1)estimated for 300 cycles.Catalyst characterizations imply that the coke is rapidly deposited on catalyst surface in the initial TOS of 3 h(0.28 mgc_(gcatalyst)^(-1)min^(-1)) and gradually becomes graphitic during the TOS of 30 h with a slow formation rate of 0.06 mgc g_(catalyst)^(-1)min^(-1).Among others(e.g.,the decrease of textural property and acidity),the nearly complete coverage of the active Fe-O-Al sites by coke accounts for the main catalyst deactivation.Besides these reversible deactivation characteristics related to coking,the irreversible catalyst deactivation is also observed with the reaction-regeneration cycle.The latter is reflected by a further decreased amount of the active Fe-O-Al sites,which agglomerate on catalyst surface with the cycle,likely associated with the hard coke residue that is not completely removed by the regeneration.