The impact of formulation and 3D-printing on the catalytic properties of ZSM-5 zeolite

Structured catalysts can help to overcome the drawbacks of conventional packed bed catalysts and help to make more efficient use of the catalytic material in the reactor. One of the major disadvantages of coated structured catalysts is the limited catalyst loading per reactor volume. In this paper, a robocasting 3D-printing technique was used to manufacture self-supporting macroporous ZSM-5 structures and so overcome the issue of low loading. Moreover, 3D-printing offers the possibility to optimize the architecture of the structured catalyst. In this work, methanol-to-olefins (MTO) was used as a test reaction to investigate the impact of 3D-printing on catalytic properties without changing the basic catalytic start material. Firstly, the influence of different binders and binder combinations in the self-supporting structured catalyst is discussed. Secondly, the architecture of the catalyst was varied by changing the diameter of the fibers of the structure, the porosity of the structure and the shape of the channels in the direction of the flow. The results show a significant impact of both the binders and the architecture on the catalytic properties of ZSM-5 for the methanol-to-olefins reaction.

Publication year:2018

Keywords:A1 Journal article

BOF-keylabel:yes

BOF-publication weight:6

CSS-citation score:2

Authors from:Government

Accessibility:Open