Abstract Ethanol is a renewable green energy, and it is an effective way to supplement or substitute fossil fuels with ethylene, C4-7 alkanes, alkyl benzene and other basic chemicals transformed by ethanol. In this work, the ZSM-5 as a catalyst in a fixed-bed-reactor in the conversion of ethanol to the gas and liquid hydrocarbons were studied. The effect of reaction temperature, weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) and reaction pressure on the yield of liquid hydrocarbons, and the effect of temperature on the catalyst life were investigated. . The reaction products were composed of 38.40% gas hydrocarbons, 22.6 % liquid hydrocarbons and 39 % water at WHSV 7.10 h-1, at 390 ℃ and 2.50 MPa pressure. The gas hydrocarbons were mainly ethylene (92.30 %) and the liquid hydrocarbons were mainly composed of 20.74% C4-7 alkanes, 72.09 % C7-11 alkylbenzenes and 4.99 % C11-14 alkylnaphthalenes. No activity decrease of the catalyst was observed in the 8 h continuous reaction.
