Effect of ZSM5 in the catalytic activity of a fluid catalytic cracking catalyst

Abstract

Effect of Zeolite Socony Mobil-5 (ZSM5) addition on the catalytic performance of fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) catalyst made of zeolite Y and ZSM5 catalyst have been investigated and herein presented. FCC composite catalyst was formulated using as-synthesized zeolite Y and ZSM5. The zeolite materials were anchored on support matrix made of activated alumina, metakaolin and silica sol. The catalyst was characterized using X-ray diffraction, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) texture analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and differential/thermogravimetric (DTG/TG) analysis. BET analysis showed that the zeolite synthesized and FCC catalysts formulated were microporous. The catalyst performance in terms of gasoline yield in cracking of n-hexadecane at 400, 500 and 500 °C were 40.7%, 59.5% and 60.0% respectively. Gasoline selectivity at 400, 500 and 500 °C were 76.5%, 81.3% and 67.5% respectively. The gasoline obtained at 400 °C had the least research octane number (RON) value of 51.47%, the RON values at 500 and 550 °C were 85.39% and 87.38% respectively. This study has shown that the optimum operating temperature was 500 °C, and incorporation of ZSM5 in the FCC catalyst formulation improved the gasoline yield of the catalyst by 72%.