Separation of branched alkanes feeds by a synergistic action of zeolite and metal-organic framework

• Autor(a) principal: Brântuas, Pedro
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Henrique, Adriano, Wahiduzzaman, Mohammad, Wedelstedt, Alexander von, Maity, Tanmoy, Rodrigues, Alírio, Nouar, Farid, Lee, U-Hwang, Cho, Kyung Ho, Silva, José A.C., Serre, Christian, Maurin, Guillaume
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/24212
• topic: Gasoline; Metal organic frameworks (MOFs); Separation; Simulation; Zeolite

Zeolites and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are considered as “competitors” for new separation processes. The production of high-quality gasoline is currently achieved through the total isomerization process that separates pentane and hexane isomers while not reaching the ultimate goal of a research octane number (RON) higher than 92. This work demonstrates how a synergistic action of the zeolite 5A and the MIL-160(Al) MOF leads to a novel adsorptive process for octane upgrading of gasoline through an efficient separation of isomers. This innovative mixed-bed adsorbent strategy encompasses a thermodynamically driven separation of hexane isomers according to the degree of branching by MIL-160(Al) coupled to a steric rejection of linear isomers by the molecular sieve zeolite 5A. Their adsorptive separation ability is further evaluated under real conditions by sorption breakthrough and continuous cyclic experiments with a mixed bed of shaped adsorbents. Remarkably, at the industrially relevant temperature of 423 K, an ideal sorption hierarchy of low RON over high RON alkanes is achieved, i.e., n-hexane ≫n-pentane ≫2-methylpentane > 3-methylpentane⋙ 2,3-dimethylbutane > isopentane ≈ 2,2-dimethylbutane, together with a productivity of 1.14 mol dm−3 and a high RON of 92, which is a leap-forward compared with existing processes.