Hydrogenation of methanol to olefins over highly stable ruthenium oxide protonated fibrous ZSM5 catalyst

Abstract

Olefins are known as a very decisive starting material for the production of particular polymer products. High demand of olefins as well as increasing of crude oil price make the production of olefins product became crucial issue. Catalytic methanol to olefins offered an alternative route in order to obtain olefins products. The protonated fibrous silica ZSM5 (HFZSM5) was synthesized by microwave assisted hydrothermal method and followed by impregnation of 0.5% ruthenium oxide (RuO2) metal onto the HFZSM5 catalyst (RuO2/HFZSM5). The catalysts were characterized using FESEM, TEM, nitrogen physisorption and pyridine adsorbed FTIR. FESEM and TEM results revealed the spherical morphology with dendrimeric silica fibers of HFZSM5 catalyst. Based on nitrogen physisorption result, slightly increase in surface area was observed after the addition of RuO2 onto the HFZSM5 catalyst surface. Obviously, the introduction of ruthenium metal has increased both Lewis and Brønsted acidity significantly, as observed by pyridine FTIR results. The catalytic methanol to olefin reaction was conducted within 473-673K at atmospheric pressure using continuous fixed bed reactor. The RuO2/HFZSM5 resulted in higher catalytic activity and performance which produced 93.92% olefin yields compared to HFZSM5 catalyst which obtained 88.60% olefin product.