Ward Huybrechts

High-pressure liquid phase hydroconversion of heptane/nonane mixtures on Pt/H-Y zeolite catalyst

The competitive hydroconversion of heptane and nonane molecules in their mixture was studied in a continuous flow, fixed-bed reactor filled with Pt/HY zeolite catalyst. Liquid-phase reaction conditions were established at reaction temperatures of 230, 250, and 270 °C by pressurizing the reactor at 100 bar. Hydrogen was supplied in an absorbed state with the liquid hydrocarbon feed. Under these liquid-phase reaction conditions, the apparent reaction rates of heptane and nonane were almost identical. In a similar experiment under vapor-phase conditions, nonane was much more reactive than heptane. The conversion data under liquid-phase conditions were analyzed with an adsorption-reaction model based on intrinsic kinetic parameters obtained from vapor-phase experiments. The model revealed that the enhanced reactivity of heptane in the liquid phase was due to its preferential adsorption. Simulation of the adsorption of the heptane/nonane mixture in the pores of zeolite Y with the configurational-bias Monte Carlo method confirmed the preferential adsorption of heptane in zeolite Y at high pressure. Under such conditions, in zeolite Y supercages the packing of the smaller heptane molecules is more favorable than that of the larger nonane molecules.

Pore mouth versus intracrystalline adsorption of isoalkanes on ZSM-22 and ZSM-23 zeolites under vapour and liquid phase conditions

Methylbranched C5-C9 alkanes do not adsorb in the intracrystalline void space of ZSM-23, neither from the vapour nor the liquid phase, but are adsorbed in ZSM-22, if only from the liquid phase, and this despite the small difference in pore size.

Synthesis of MTT zeolite catalysts with surface Al depletion

MTT zeolite crystals with siliceous layer on their external surface were synthesized using a two step hydrothermal procedure in which cores prepared from an aluminosilicate gel were transferred into a siliceous gel for farther crystal growth. The thickness of the siliceous shell was varied by varying the proportion of the two gels. The samples were characterized using physicochemical methods (XRD, XPS, 27Al MAS NMR, SEM, N2 adsorption). The zeolites were converted into bifunctional catalysts and evaluated in hydroisomerization of decane.

n-Alkane hydroconversion on Zeogrid and colloidal ZSM-5 assembled from aluminosilicate nanoslabs of MFI framework type

n-Alkane hydroisomerisation and hydrocracking experiments reveal that ZSM-5 materials synthesized by self-assembly of nanoslabs show different molecular shape selectivity than ZSM-5 synthesized by hydrothermal methods.