title: Ethanol dehydration to ethylene in a stratified autothermal millisecond reactor.
abstract: The concurrent decomposition and deoxygenation of ethanol was accomplished in a stratified reactor with 50-80 ms contact times. The stratified reactor comprised an upstream oxidation zone that contained Pt-coated Al(2)O(3) beads and a downstream dehydration zone consisting of H-ZSM-5 zeolite films deposited on Al(2)O(3) monoliths. Ethanol conversion, product selectivity, and reactor temperature profiles were measured for a range of fuel:oxygen ratios for two autothermal reactor configurations using two different sacrificial fuel mixtures: a parallel hydrogen-ethanol feed system and a series methane-ethanol feed system. Increasing the amount of oxygen relative to the fuel resulted in a monotonic increase in ethanol conversion in both reaction zones. The majority of the converted carbon was in the form of ethylene, where the ethanol carbon-carbon bonds stayed intact while the oxygen was removed. Over 90% yield of ethylene was achieved by using methane as a sacrificial fuel. These results demonstrate that noble metals can be successfully paired with zeolites to create a stratified autothermal reactor capable of removing oxygen from biomass model compounds in a compact, continuous flow system that can be configured to have multiple feed inputs, depending on process restrictions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, 421 Washington Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Skinner
authors.forename: Edward L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Michor
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tsapatsis
authors.forename: Aditya
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bhan
authors.forename: Lanny D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Schmidt
mesh_terms: D002384:Catalysis; D000431:Ethanol / Q000737:chemistry*; D005030:Ethylenes / Q000138:chemical synthesis*; D010984:Platinum / Q000737:chemistry*; D017641:Zeolites / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D005030:Ethylenes; D017641:Zeolites; D000431:Ethanol; D010984:Platinum; C036216:ethylene