Aromatization of commercial full range naphtha has been studied in a fixed bed reactor using the synthesized hierarchical zeolite catalysts. Desilication was carried out on H‐ZSM‐5 support with Silica to Alumina (SiO2/Al2O3) molar ratio 30 to generate additional meso‐porosity and active metal Gallium was incorporated by wetness impregnation method. Various concentrations of sodium hydroxide solutions and two different initial calcination temperature were used during the modification to understand the effect of these parameters on the catalysts. All the catalysts were characterized using nitrogen adsorption, X‐ray diffraction, temperature programmed ammonia desorption, elemental and surface imaging techniques. Catalytic evaluation is done in a fixed bed reactor operated at a temperature of 550 °C, atmospheric pressure and liquid hourly space velocity of 6.0 h−1. Product streams from the fixed bed reactor are analyzed using both online and offline gas chromatographs using ASTM D7833 and D6729 respectively to report product selectivity and mass balance. It is observed that the additional meso porosity and the retention of crystallite phase lead to 62.4 % enhancement in aromatic selectivity and 52.2 % decrease in off‐gas generation for the developed catalyst compared to its non‐desilicated analogue during the aromatization process of full range real naphtha.

No abstract

No abstract

Parent ZSM-5 and Ga-modified ZSM-5 catalysts with different Si/Al ratios and particle sizes were prepared. The physicochemical properties of the prepared catalysts were investigated by performing X-ray powder diffraction analysis, BET surface area analysis, and NH₃-TPD analysis. The performance of the aromatization reaction of the prepared catalysts was evaluated with 1-hexane as a model compound. The zeolite catalysts with a low SiO₂/Al₂O₃ ratio possessed better activity than those with a high SiO₂/Al₂O₃ ratio. Ga modification significantly improved the catalyst aromatization selectivity. Through aromatization, the acid sites of Ga-modified nano-sized zeolites promoted the selective conversion of produced olefin to aromatics by removing H-atoms. For the parent ZSM-5 and Ga-modified catalysts, the catalyst stability increased with an increase in the SiO₂/Al₂O₃ molar ratio. The nano-sized ZSM-5 catalyst with a high SiO₂/Al₂O₃ ratio exhibited better catalytic stability than the microscale ZSM-5, and the nano-sized catalyst with a low SiO₂/Al₂O₃ ratio showed very low stability.