(608a) Experimental and Simulation Studies of High-Temperature Ethane Dehydrogenation in Microporous Zeolite Membrane Reactor

Shailesh Dangwal, Ruochen Liu, Seok-Jhin Kim*

School of Chemical Engineering, Oklahoma State University,

420 Engineering North, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA

ABSTRACT

Ethylene is an important chemical engineering ingredient and used in polymerization, oxidation, and alkylation. The increasing demand for ethylene has stimulated substantial research into the development of new processes to reduce energy consumption. Catalytic ethane dehydrogenation using a membrane reactor is an attractive solution because the cracking equilibrium can be shifted in favor of ethylene by selective removal of hydrogen. We reported the intensification of ethane dehydrogenation reaction in MFI zeolite membrane reactors operating with a Pt/Al₂O₃ catalyst. The effects of the reaction conditions and the membrane separation properties on the ethane conversion in the membrane reactor were investigated experimentally and by simulations using a simple one-dimensional model which was validated by the experimental data. It was demonstrated that the rate of H₂ membrane permeation significantly enhances the ethane conversion. MFI membrane reactors allow the equilibrium limit of ethane conversion to be surpassed at high temperatures. The model calculations have shown that near-completion ethane conversion (>99.5%) may be achieved under realistic operating temperature, pressure, space velocity and catalyst load even for membranes with moderate H₂ selectivity, (aH₂/C₂H₄<10) and H₂ permeance (<1.8×10^-7 mol.s.m².Pa).

*Corresponding author: E-mail: seokjhin.kim@okstate.edu