Selective zeolite catalyst for alkylation of benzene with ethylene to produce ethylbenzene

Abstract

In this work, a selective catalyst of BXE ALKCAT zeolite has been developed with about 30 % of ZSM-5 balanced with kaolinite, and applied for gas-phase alkylation of benzene (BZ) with ethylene (E). The catalyst has been tested in a fixed-bed down-pass flow reactor under different conditions of temperatures ranging between 300 and 450°C with BZ to E mole ratios ranging between 1:1, 3:1 and 6:1 under atmospheric pressure and space velocity ranges between 0.1 and 150 h -1 . The BXE ALKCAT zeolite catalyst has been characterized using: scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffraction, specific surface area, pore volumes, pore size distributions, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and differential thermal analysis, and thermo-gravimetric analyses. Ethylbenzene was the main product of alkylation, and diethylbenzene isomers (ortho-, meta-, and para-) were the minor products. In the case of 1:1 mol ratio of BZ to E, the selectivity of EB about 85.5 % at highest conversion of BZ was obtained after 1 h of reaction on stream at 450°C. A decrease in the temperature to 300°C (with 1:1 mol ratio) caused the selectivity of EB to decrease to 73.0 %. EB and DEBs yields were found to increase with increasing the reaction temperature and decreasing the mole ratio of BZ to E. The conversion of BZ appeared to be depending strongly on mole ratio of BZ to E at a given temperature. The study has shown that the BXE ALKCAT zeolite is active as a catalyst for the alkylation reaction and selective to EB compared with other zeolite catalysts.

Recent advances of pore system construction in zeolite-catalyzed chemical industry processes

“…95,96 Thanks to the proper pore size of this zeolite, the efficiencies for EB diffusion and alkyl transfer were drastically increased while the production of polyethylbenzene was greatly suppressed. 97 However, the pure zeolite ZSM-5 catalyst suffered from severe disadvantages. For example, the high benzene to ethylene molar ratio (B/E of about 8-16) required more energy for the separation of EB.…”

Effect of laser Fluence Energy on Morphological, Structural and Optical Properties of Gold and Silver Thin Films Prepared by Pulse Laser Deposition Method

“…[24] and Al-Kinany et.al. [23]. Figure (7) shows absorbance spectrum of Au thin films, which is related with interband transitions of metallic gold, and formation of a plasmon band peaked at 600 nm.…”

One-Step Production of Ethylbenzene from Ethane and Benzene on the PtZnPr/ZSM-5 Catalyst

“…Ethylbenzene is an important chemical raw material, which is widely used in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and agricultural industries. 1 At present, the main method of industrial ethylbenzene production is through a two-step process consisting of the dehydrogenation of ethane to ethylene followed by the alkylation of benzene with ethylene. However, due to thermodynamic equilibrium limitations, the dehydrogenation step must be carried out at high temperatures (>800 °C); hence, implementing this reaction often results in high energy consumption and large capital costs.…”

“…Ethylbenzene is an important chemical raw material, which is widely used in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and agricultural industries . At present, the main method of industrial ethylbenzene production is through a two-step process consisting of the dehydrogenation of ethane to ethylene followed by the alkylation of benzene with ethylene.…”