Bioethanol to higher olefins process can provide renewable platform molecules for biofuel production. The small alkenes can be used as building blocks to form long-chain alkanes by oligomerization and hydrogenation. Lots of literature studies have been reported on ethanol conversion to 1,3-butadiene over Lewis acid zeolites with bifunctional sites by loading transition metals (e.g., Ag, Cu). The right combination between the metal sites and Lewis acid sites is very important for this type of tandem reactions. Under the guidance of similar principle, we report our work on rational design of multifunctional transition metal modified Lewis acid zeolite to convert ethanol to higher olefins through a new reaction pathway. This catalyst can achieve high conversion (~100%) and high selectivity (&gt;80%) to C3+ olefins under high space velocity and mild condition (1 atm, 300 to 400 degree C). Various characterizations are applied to understand the structure of this new catalyst. Both XAS and HR STEM results suggest that the metal species in zeolite are single sites even with high metal loadings. Pyridine DRIFTS, CO2 DRIFTS and NH3 TPD are also applied to distinguish and quantify the active sites. Both the roles of the metals and reaction mechanism will be also be discussed in this talk.

Multifunctional zeolite catalyst for tandem ethanol conversion to C3+ olefins

2019 Spring National Meeting

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