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Catalytic Conversion of Chloromethane to Olefins and Aromatics Over Zeolite Catalysts

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Abstract

We report the tunable conversion of chloromethane to olefins and aromatics using different metal-promoted zeolites as catalysts. Despite SAPO-34 was industrially used as catalysts for methanol to olefins reaction (MTO), the SAPO-34 based zeolites exhibited low activity and short lifetime when using chloromethane as the feed. Higher chloromethane conversion and longer catalyst lifetime were found on H-ZSM-5. The activity and product distribution can be improved by optimizing the reaction temperature and space velocity. Impregnating the H-ZSM-5 zeolite with 1 wt% and 5 wt% metal oxide as promoters significantly enhanced the conversion efficiency and altered the product distribution. The highest aromatics selectivity (38%) was obtained on the H-ZSM-5 zeolite promoted by 5 wt% Ni, whereas on 5 wt% Mg and 5 wt% Mn promoted H-ZSM-5, the aromatics selectivity is merely 5%. Therefore, different modified H-ZSM-5 could be used to convert chloromethane to either aromatics or olefin-heavy products. It was found that the aromatics yield is strongly correlated to the acidity of the H-ZSM-5 zeolite.

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Acknowledgements

We are thankful to Louisiana State University, Cain Department of Chemical Engineering on the NH3-TPD analysis.

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  1. Di Zhu and Zi Wang have contributed equally to this study.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Biomass Gasification Technology of Shandong Province, Energy Research Institute, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250014, China

    Di Zhu & Baofeng Zhao

  2. Power Environmental Energy Research Institute, 738 Arrow Grand Circle, Covina, CA, 91722, USA

    Zi Wang, Fei Meng & Yongchun Tang

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Swarom Kanitkar

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  1. Di Zhu
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Zhu, D., Wang, Z., Meng, F. et al. Catalytic Conversion of Chloromethane to Olefins and Aromatics Over Zeolite Catalysts. Catal Lett 151, 1038–1048 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10562-020-03364-z

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