Abundance of natural gas has led to resurgence of interest in its conversion to liquid hydrocarbon. Non-oxidative methane dehydroaromatization (MDA) is one of several promising approaches for methane conversion to higher hydrocarbons. However, this approach has reached a plateau in terms of conversion and selectivity. The state of the art catalyst, MoZSM-5 exhibits about ~10% conversion with ~80% aromatic selectivity. Previous attempts to improve conversion and selectivity by employing bimetallic zeolites have not been successful. Here, we report a new bimetallic zeolite, InMoZSM-5 that exhibits a 10% improvement in aromatic selectivity over MoZSM-5 catalyst and the physical mixture of InZSM-5 and MoZSM-5. We will present our results on synthesis and characterization of InMoZSM-5 catalyst, its methane conversion efficiency as a function of temperature and space velocity, and the impact of In loading on catalyst performance. The results suggest that the improved performance of bimetallic catalysts comes from synergistic activities of Mo and In in ZSM-5. [contact: narulack@ornl.gov]

Zeolite-supported indium-molybdenum oxides as efficient catalysts for methane dehydroaromatization

249th National Meeting (2015)

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