Kinetic Study of Methanol Dehydration to Dimethyl Ether in Catalytic Packed Bed Reactor over Resin

Abstract

Dimethyl ether (DME) is considered as a significant fuel alternative with a critical manufacturing process. Only a few authors have presented the kinetic analysis of attractive and alternative catalysts to Al 2 O 3 and/or zeolite in DME production, despite the fact that there is a large library of kinetic studies for these commercial catalysts. The purpose of this research was to contribute to this direction by conducting a catalytic test to determine kinetic parameters for methanol dehydration over sulfonic acid catalysts (resin). However, due to the relevance of the mathematical description of this process in the industry was also studied, a study of kinetics parameters and mathematical modeling of methanol dehydration in an atmospheric gas phase in a fixed bed reactor with a temperature range (90&deg C - 120 &deg C) was examined. The Langmuir-Hinshelwood (L-H) model provides the best fit to experimental data, with an excellent R 2 = 0.9997, and the experimental results were compared to those predicted by these models with very small deviations. The kinetic parameters were found to be in good agreement with the Arrhenius equation, with acceptable straight-line graphs. The activation energy E was computed and found to be 27.66 kJ/mole, with an av erage variation of 0.32 percent between the predicted and calculated results . Simple mathematical continuum models (plug flow reactor PFR) showed an acceptable agreement with the experimental data.