Silver-Modified η-Al2O3 Catalyst for DME Production

Abstract

Herein, an in situ DRIFT technique was used to study the reaction mechanism of methanol dehydration to dimethyl ether (DME). Moreover, the effect of silver loading on the catalytic performance of η-Al2O3 was examined in a fixed bed reactor under the reaction conditions where the temperature ranged from 180 to 300 °C with a WHSV = 48.4 h–1. It was observed that the optimum Ag loading was found to be 10% Ag/η-Al2O3 with this novel catalyst also showing a high degree of stability under steady-state conditions, and this is attributed to the enhancement in both the surface Lewis acidity and the hydrophobicity.