The conversion of light alkanes into aromatics is an important catalytic reaction from both industrial and academic viewpoints. Propane aromatization leads to the formation of the high value aromatic hydrocarbons (mainly, benzene, toluene and xylene (BTX)), which are valuable intermediates in the chemical and petrochemical industries. This reaction is highly complex and involves transformation of various hydrocarbons through different reaction steps. The aromatization of light alkanes over ZSM-5 catalyst can be explained on the bases of a three stage process as below: Transformation of alkanes into alkenes Interconversion of alkenes into higher alkenes Aromatization of alkenes. In this research work aromatization of propane has been performed over H-GaAlMFI zeolites. The Ga-Al-MFI zeolites were synthesized having different Si/Ga, Ga/Al and Si/(Ga+Al) ratios. It was observed that propane conversion and aromatic yield was increased with increase in Ga/Al ratio till an optimum value of ~0.4. The dehydrogenation to cracking (D/C) ratio was increased with increase in Ga/Al ratio due to increase in non-framework (N-FW) Ga species. The propane conversion and aromatic yield were also observed to increase with increase in Si/(Ga+Al) ratio till an optimum value of ~20 (Figure-1) and then dropped sharply. The aromatization to cracking (A/C) ratio passed through a maximum corresponding to the optimum value of ~20 for Si/(Ga+Al) ratio and then decreased with increase in the Si/(Ga+Al) ratio. The calcination temperature of 550 C for H-GaAlMFI was observed to be the optimum resulting into maximum conversion and aromatic yield. The A/C and D/C ratios were observed to pass through maxima at calcination temperature of 550 C and then decreased with further increase in calcination temperature.

Influence of different elemental ratios and thermal pretreatment on the aromatization of propane using Ga-Al-MFI catalyst

254th National Meeting (2017)

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