In this study, a series of H-BZSM-5
catalysts, rich in porous structures,
were prepared by a template-free method followed by an alkali treatment,
each of which was combined with a Zn-ZSM-5 catalyst to produce aromatic
hydrocarbons from methanol via low-carbon olefins. By separately designing
suitable catalysts that satisfy the needs of these two stages, and
appropriately matching these two catalysts, the stability of the catalyst
and single-pass aromatic production is expected to improve. For two-step
coupling to produce aromatic hydrocarbons, the HBZ5-x-AT catalyst (H-BZSM-5 treated with NaOH + Al(NO3)3) was selected for the conversion of methanol to low-carbon
olefins. Adding an appropriate amount of aluminum during the alkali
treatment can suppress the over-etching of the silicon-rich region
inside the crystal and, at the same time, aluminum atoms and boron
atoms undergo isomorphous substitution. While introducing continuous
mesopores, some strong acid sites are introduced, significantly improving
the stability of B-ZSM-5 in the methanol-to-olefin (Step 1) reaction.
The HBZ5-27-AT catalyst has a suitable catalyst lifetime, high C2
=–C4
= intermediate
product selectivity, with a total selectivity of 73%, which is beneficial
to subsequent olefin aromatization. The Zn-ZSM-5 catalyst was selected
for the preparation of aromatics from low-carbon olefins (Step 2).
Considering the effect of the composite method and ratio of the two
kinds of catalysts on the performance of the two-step coupled aromatic
production, it is concluded that, when the composite catalyst has
upper and lower layer filling and the ratio is 3:7, compared with
the traditional Zn-modified ZSM-5, the stability of the catalyst was
increased from 3 to 194 h, and the single-pass aromatic production
increased from 0.15 to 4.98 g/g catalyst.