498799 Positive Synergy in Bimetallic Wzr Mesoporous Silicates for Ethanol Conversion Reactions

Hongda Zhu1,2, Anand Ramanathan2, Jian-Feng Wu2 and Bala Subramaniam3, (1)Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, (2)Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, (3)Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

We previously reported that metal-incorporated mesoporous silicates (Zr-KIT-6, W-KIT-6 and Nb-KIT-61) are active in catalyzing ethanol conversion. While Zr-KIT-6 materials are highly selective for olefin production, they are much less active than catalysts that exhibit stronger Brønsted acidity, such as H-ZSM-5.2 Therefore, we explored bimetallic metal-incorporated silicates by simultaneously incorporating W and Zr into the KIT-6 framework to better tune the activity of the hybrid catalyst (denoted as W/Zr-KIT-6). Through systematic studies with various W and Zr loadings, we discovered that the dehydration activity of the W/Zr-KIT-6 catalysts exceeded that of either Zr-KIT-6 or W-KIT-6 monometallic catalysts. The performance of WZr/KIT-6 and other bimetallic catalyst formulations along with detailed catalyst characterization will be presented.

1. Zhu H, Ramanathan A, Wu J-F, Chaudhari RV, Subramaniam B. Effects of tunable acidity and basicity of Nb-KIT-6 catalysts on ethanol conversion: Experiments and kinetic modeling. AIChE Journal. 2017.
2. Nash CP, Ramanathan A, Ruddy DA, et al. Mixed alcohol dehydration over Brønsted and Lewis acidic catalysts. Applied Catalysis A: General. January 25, 2016 2016;510:110-124.


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