Hydrothermal Modification Effect on the Catalyst for Etherification

Abstract

Etherification of isoamylene with methanol has been carried out over the γ-Al2O3/Hβ catalyst in a fixed bed reactor, catalysts were hydrothermal modified at different temperatures and time. The results show that the appropriate loading amount of active component Hβ is 20%; Hydrothermal modification is an effective way to improve the etherification activity, When γ-Al2O3/20%Hβ catalyst was hydrothermal modified at 573K for 3 hours, the isoamylene conversion is the highest, reach up to 51.95%, about 25% higher than the untreated one. From results of BET, XRD, and NH3-TPD characterization can be seen that hydrothermal modification does not change crystalline structure of the catalyst, but specific surface areas decrease together with pore volume and pore size increase, it also reduced the total acid volume of catalyst and improved the surface acid distribution of weak acid and strong acid.