Conversion of methanol to hydrocarbons has been an important industrial reaction both for making synthetic fuels as well as industrial chemicals. This is important reaction as a model for studying deoxygenation of biomass for biofuel production as well. An equilibrium analysis on this reaction can be used as a stepping stone to predict the theoretical limits of products the reaction would render at different reaction conditions.Here we report the equilibrium composition of methanol-to-hydrocarbon system by minimizing the total Gibbs energy of the system using Cantera software. The system was treated as a mixture of 14 components which had CH3OH, C6H6, C7H8, C8H10 (ethyl benzene), C8H10 (xylenes), C2H4, C2H6, C3H6, CH4, H2O, C, CO2, CO, and H2. Equilibrium compositions of each species were analyzed for temperatures ranging from 300 to 1380 K and pressure at 0�15 atm gauge. It was observed that when the temperature increases the mole fractions of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene pass through a maximum around 1020K.

Equilibrium analysis on methanol-to-hydrocarbon reaction by Gibbs free energy minimization method

245th National Meeting (2013)

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