Process for Dehydration of Ethanol to Ethylene in a Adiabatic Fixed Reactor
1. Shanghai Research Institute of Petrochemical Technology, SINOPEC, Shanghai 201208, China;
2. Engineering Research Center of Large Scale Reactor Engineering and Technology of Ministry of Education, State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
Abstract:To develop the new process for the dehydration of bio-ethanol producing ethylene, the optimal process experiment was carried out in the adiabatic reactor using the alumina catalyst made by Shanghai Research Institute of Petrochemical Technology developed The effects of different ratio of water to alcohol, space velocities and temperature on ethanol conversion and ethylene selectivity were examined. Using the experimental data, the coefficients of the intrinsic reaction kinetics equation on this catalyst for the key components of ethanol and ethylene were calibrated. The efficiency factors of the key components were also calculated and the macro kinetics models of biomass ethanol dehydration, which is more suitable for the industrial application was established. The calculated results were in good agreement with the experimental data. With respect to the isothermal fixed or single adiabatic bed reaction process, this newly developed four adiabatic reaction technology on alumina catalyst performs well in reducing energy consumption, increasing the conversion of ethanol and improving the ethylene selectivity. These could provide necessary data for optimization and amplification of industrial reactor design.