(508f) Ethane Dehydroaromatization Using Molybdenum Promoted Microwave Synthesized Zeolites

As the demand for cleaner fuel alternatives grow, the world’s use of natural gas substitutes continues to increase. Currently, natural gas makes up a large portion of the North American energy production. The conversion of natural gas to value-added chemicals involves either the direct or indirect methods. Although the indirect methods are more commonly used, the use of direct methods can be less expensive. Where indirect methods have scalable processes such as steam reforming and partial oxidation, direct methods face technical challenges. Zeolite supported metal catalysts have been extensively used in the transformation of light alkanes to aromatics. A catalyst performance and activity depend on the structure of the zeolite as well as the promotional effects of the metal promoter. Microwave energy has been recently used as a favorable way to help facilitate some chemical reactions. Microwave energy has shown promise as an energy efficient and time saving experimental method which can help improve many reaction systems. The use of microwave radiation can help speed up the time-consuming synthesis process associated with the synthesis of zeolites and potentially increase the yields compared to conventional methods. In this study, a microwave synthesizer was employed to synthesize the zeolite support, ZSM-5. The synthesized zeolite was then characterized by XRD, TEM, SEM, and BET prior to reaction testing. Following the characterization of the zeolite crystal the support was impregnated with a molybdenum promoter by incipient wetness impregnation. The prepared metal-loaded catalyst was then tested for the ethane DHA reaction in a fixed bed reactor at 650°C for two hours. The ethane conversion, product selectivity, and production rates were tracked and plotted. The spent catalyst then underwent characterization testing to determine full catalytic reaction performance during the ethane dehydroaromatization reaction.