A recent advancement in the conversion of methanol to hydrocarbon fuels is the development of a Cu-modified beta zeolite catalyst (Cu/BEA) that exhibits a higher productivity and yield than the parent H-form BEA catalyst in the production of branched C4-C8hydrocarbons. The Cu/BEA catalyst activates co-fed hydrogen, and shifts the paraffin-olefin ratio of the products to greatly favor paraffins. The olefin portion of the product can be coupled to a jet-range hydrocarbon product, but the yield is inherently limited by the C5+ olefin selectivity. Control over the paraffin-olefin product ratio would enable the ability to tune the resulting HOG:distillate product ratio, and would contribute to the flexibility of a market-responsive biorefinery centered around bio-derived DME. Towards that end, we have developed bimetallic catalyst formulations that seek to retain the high activity and H2-activation of the Cu/BEA catalyst, but include additional ionic species that dehydrogenate alkanes. Here, we will present the synthetic approach to balance metallic Cu sites with ionic dehydrogenation sites and characterization of these materials using X-ray absorption spectroscopy and high-resolution TEM imaging with elemental mapping. The catalytic performance of these bimetallic materials in the DME homologation to high-octane hydrocarbons will be presented, where a decrease in the paraffin-olefin ratio from 5.2 (Cu/BEA) to 3.4 (CuZn/BEA) was achieved.

Developing bimetallic BEA zeolite catalysts to control the paraffin-olefin ratio during DME homologation

2019 Spring National Meeting

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