Ethylene production by gas phase catalytic dehydration of ethanol (#1557)
Read ArticleDate of Conference
July 17-19, 2024
Published In
"Sustainable Engineering for a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Future at the Service of Education, Research, and Industry for a Society 5.0."
Location of Conference
Costa Rica
Authors
LICONA BUELVAS, Wilmer
DIEUZEIDE, María Laura
MARIÑO, Fernando Javier
Abstract
Ethylene production by gas phase ethanol dehydration has gained relevance in the last years due to the large amounts of biomass in some countries. In this work, the catalytic behavior of two commercial alumina is compared (Sasol and Rhône Poulenc) in a wide range of operative conditions: catalyst loading; liquid flow, and reaction temperature. It was found that Sasol alumina is significantly more active than Rhône-Poulenc, achieving ethanol complete conversion at 350ºC with 100% selectivity to ethylene. This result can be explained by the higher sodium content of Rhône-Poulenc alumina since it was reported that sodium is detrimental for alcohol adsorption. Then for Sasol alumina, considering differential reactor and separable kinetics, the activation energy for ethanol dehydration reaction was determined, 132 kJ/mol. Finally, based on the experimental results for different fed ethanol molar fraction it was possible to infer a weak dependency between reaction rate and ethanol concentration. This result is consistent with the low reaction orders reported in bibliography respect to ethanol.