Kinetic study of the methanol to olefin process on a SAPO-34 catalyst

In this paper, a new kinetic model for methanol to olefin process over SAPO-34 catalyst was developed using elementary step level. The kinetic model fits well to the experimental data obtained in a fixed bed reactor. Using this kinetic model, the effect of the most important operating conditions such as temperature, pressure and methanol space-time on the product distribution has been examined. It is shown that the temperature ranges between 400 °C and 450 °C is appropriate for propene production while the medium temperature (450 °C) is favorable for total olefin yield which is equal to 33%. Increasing the reactor pressure decreases the ethylene yield, while medium pressure is favorable for the propylene yield. The result shows that the ethylene and propylene and consequently the yield of total olefins increase to approximately 35% with decreasing the molar ratio of inlet water to methanol.