A novel microwave-assisted methanol-to-hydrocarbons process with a structured ZSM-5/SiC foam catalyst: Proof-of-concept and environmental impacts
Xiaoxia Ou, Marco Tomatis, Yongyong Lan, Yilai Jiao, Yipei Chen, Zheng Guo, Xin Gao, Tao Wu, Chunfei Wu, Kaiqi Shi, Adisa Azapagic, Xiaolei Fan
Abstract
This study presents a novel combination of microwave irradiation and structured zeolite/SiC foam catalyst to improve the methanol-to-hydrocarbons (MTH) process as well as its environmental sustainability. Accordingly, ZSM-5/SiC foam was studied under microwave irradiation at various reaction temperatures (400–550 °C) and space velocities (8 and 12 h−1) and compared to conventional ZSM-5 pellets. ZSM-5/SiC foam promoted higher selectivity towards C1−C5 hydrocarbons (∼95%) and particularly propylene (∼40% at 400 °C and 8 h−1) compared to ZSM-5 pellets (∼40% and 6–9%, respectively) due to the enhanced mass and heat transfers. The microwave-assisted MTH process with both the structured catalyst and pellets was also assessed on the environmental sustainability via life cycle assessment in comparison with the conventionally-heat process with the structured catalyst. The results showed that the microwave-based process with the structured catalyst could reduce the environmental impacts of propylene production by 22–30% compared to the conventionally-heated process with the same catalyst.