Experimental Study and Modeling of an Adiabatic Fixed-bed Reactor for Methanol Dehydration to Dimethyl Ether

Abstract One-dimensional heterogeneous plug flow model was employed to model an adiabatic fixed-bed reactor for the catalytic dehydration of methanol to dimethyl ether. Longitudinal temperature and conversion profiles predicted by this model were compared to those experimentally measured in a bench scale reactor. The reactor was packed with 1.5 mm γ-Al2O3 pellets as dehydration catalyst and operated in a temperature range of 543-603 K at an atmospheric pressure. Also, the effects of weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) and temperature on methanol conversion were investigated. According to the results, the maximum conversion is obtained at 603.15 K with WHSV of 72.87 h−1.

[1]  Janez Levec,et al.  Correction to “Catalytic Dehydration of Methanol to Dimethyl Ether. Kinetic Investigation and Reactor Simulation” , 1993, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.

[2]  D. Chadwick,et al.  Kinetics and modelling of dimethyl ether synthesis from synthesis gas , 1999 .

[3]  Ali Kargari,et al.  EFFECTS OF VARIOUS PROCESS PARAMETERS ON TEMPERATURE PROFILE OF ADIABATIC FIXED BED REACTOR FOR PRODUCTION OF DIMETHYL ETHER (DME) FROM METHANOL , 2007 .

[4]  Gholamreza Moradi,et al.  Determination of the Optimum Operating Conditions for Direct Synthesis of Dimethyl Ether from Syngas , 2007 .

[5]  Wen-de Xiao,et al.  Simulation and experiment study of dimethyl ether synthesis from syngas in a fluidized-bed reactor , 2004 .

[6]  D. Goodman,et al.  Catalytic dehydration of methanol to dimethyl ether (DME) over Pd/Cab-O-Sil catalysts , 1997 .

[7]  J. B. Riggs.  An Introduction to Numerical Methods for Chemical Engineers , 1988 .

[8]  K. Jun,et al.  Highly Water-Enhanced H-ZSM-5 Catalysts for Dehydration of Methanol to Dimethyl Ether , 2003 .

[9]  E. Sousa-Aguiar,et al.  Role of dehydration catalyst acid properties on one-step DME synthesis over physical mixtures , 2005 .

[10]  F. Baghaei,et al.  CATALYTIC DEHYDRATION OF METHANOL TO DIMETHYL ETHER (DME) OVER SOLID-ACID CATALYSTS , 2005 .

[11]  M. Taghizadeh,et al.  Effects of temperature and feed composition on catalytic dehydration of methanol to dimethyl ether over γ-alumina , 2008 .

[12]  D. Wayne Goodman,et al.  Synthesis of dimethyl ether (DME) from methanol over solid-acid catalysts , 1997 .

[13]  T. Inui,et al.  Effect of the property of solid acid upon syngas-to-dimethyl ether conversion on the hybrid catalysts composed of Cu–Zn–Ga and solid acids , 2000 .