Description
Recently, the methanol-to-olefin (MTO) process received a growing interest as one of the most prominent technologies to bypass crude oil in the production of light olefins. H-SAPO-34 is an important industrial catalyst for this process due to its high selectivity to light olefins. Nowadays, reaction mechanisms based on hydrocarbon pool (HP) species, which co-catalyze the reactions, have been generally accepted. The question how water, a byproduct of methanol synthesis and the MTO process itself, influences the methanol conversion reactions over H-SAPO-34 however remains up to date unanswered. In this project, this issue will be addressed at a molecular level using advanced dynamic techniques. The gained knowledge will help to determine the optimal methanol-water ratio in the feed and in the further optimization of the MTO process.
