Activities of industrial alumina based catalysts in the dehydration of ethanol to ethylene

Abstract

Ethanol dehydration to ethylene is tested on industrial alumina, a support for hydrotreating catalyst IK-GO-1 (AO_IK-GO-1), sorbents AN-2N and AOK-63-22, and catalyst AOK-78-59. Activity is measured in a plug-flow reactor in the temperature range of 375–400°C at a contact time of 0.3 s, and the effect of the process temperature on the conversion of ethanol and the selectivity toward target and secondary products is determined. A correlation between the specific activity and mass fraction of sodium is found for samples with homogeneous phase composition. It is shown that the activity of the investigated industrial catalytic systems based on alumina in the dehydration of ethanol to ethylene changes in the order AO_IK-GO-1 > AN-2N > AOK-63-22 > AOK-78-59.