Intraparticle Mass and Heat Transfer Modeling of Methanol to Olefins Process on SAPO-34: A Single Particle Model

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Light olefins such as ethylene and propylene are high value-added gases usually derived from petroleum refining. The methanol to olefins (MTO) process offers an attractive alternative route to produce olefins, as methanol can be prepared from a relatively cheap and widely available source of energy, i.e., coal or natural gas. In the present work, a comprehensive single particle model was developed to characterize detailed chemical and physical phenomena occurring within a SAPO-34 catalyst particle during the MTO process. This model allows prediction of the species mass fraction, temperature, reaction rate, and pressure distributions within the particle as a function of particle diameter, operating temperature, mean intraparticle pore diameter, and thermal conductivity. A thorough parametric study based on the validated model demonstrated that intraparticle phenomena have a great impact on the MTO process and thus cannot be neglected in MTO process modeling, especially for the cases where fast or strong exothermal reactions occurred in large catalytic particles.