Methanol Alkylation Catalyst & Reactor Equipments

Methanol Alkylation Catalyst & Reactor Equipments

 Recently, the coal-based chemical industry develops fast. Methanol produced from natural gas or coal is used to produce olefin such as ethane, propylene and/or gasoline, significantly increasing the economic value from raw materials. For this promising industry, our self-developed technology is using methanol or other alkoxy compounds such as dimethyl ether to catalytically produce divers hydrocarbon mainly propylene，LPG and gasoline. We did some improvement in the catalyst performance including the physical, chemical and hydrothermal stability of our catalysts. Therefore, our new generation MTP catalyst emphasizes direct conversion of methanol to objective products without using pre-reactor for producing dimethyl ether.

The simplified process is shown as follows. In this process, the methanol is added to a series of segmented alkylation reactors, and the hydrocarbon product generated in this step mainly gaseous phase alkenes with a small amount of gasoline which is about 7% for total. Propylene is separated. The rest C₂ and C₄ alkenes are recycled into alkylation reactors to be transformed into propylene. There is also an alternative way to feed the rest of gaseous products into a series of catalyst beds with different catalysts for deep processing to produce high quality gasoline, depending on the optimized economic feasibility.

The lifetime of our fresh catalyst and its olefin selectivity in gaseous phase are shown in the following figure with the weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) is 1.0 h^-1. The lifetime is about 20 days which is determined by the methanol conversion decreasing from 100% to 95%. The catalyst can be regenerated more than 12 times.

The advantages of our catalyst for methanol alkylation are listed as follows;

1. High Methanol Conversion and High Activity
2. High selectivity towards propylene, low propane
3. Long lifetime and operating cycles
4. Available for regeneration
5. Good mechanical stability and high hydrothermal stability

For the whole technology, we can provide full set of catalysts and reactor equipments with operating art and craft, but we can also provide our catalysts separately for existing plant.