Effect of Metal Active Sites on the Product Distribution over Composite Catalysts in the Direct Synthesis of Aromatics from Syngas

Abstract

The conversion of syngas to aromatics over composite catalysts, comprising a mixture of Fe2O3-SiO2 and Nb-/Ni- modified HZSM-5 (HZ), CuO-ZnO-Al2O3 (CZA) and Nb-/Ni- modified HZ, and a mixture of above two kinds of metal oxides and Ni-HZ, were investigated at 330 °C, 4 MPa and H2:CO = 2:1. Catalysts were characterized to analyze the properties. Fe2O3-SiO2/modified-HZ had the high selectivity of BTX, while CuO-ZnO-Al2O3/modified-HZ had the high selectivity of durene. Fe-CZA/Ni-HZ exhibited higher selectivity of trimethylbenzene (triMB) than both Fe/Ni-HZ and CZA/Ni-HZ, lower selectivity of BTX and tetramethylbenzene (tetraMB), compared with Fe/Ni-HZ and CZA/Ni-HZ, respectively. Reaction pathways were speculated to illustrate the diverse distribution of aromatics. The incorporation of Nb and Ni on the parent HZSM-5 increased the selectivity of aromatics due to their various acidity. The highest selectivity of BTX was obtained over Fe/Ni-HZ and the highest selectivity of durene was achieved over CZA/Nb-Ni-HZ.