Industrially alkanes are synthesized from
methanol with use of zeolite catalysts, through
dehydratation. Could there be alternative OTC
catalysts for this reaction(s)?DavidJR - 2-6-2018 at 18:00
Who on earth makes alkanes from methanol? That's definitely not how it's done industrially. Quite the opposite, actually.Fulmen - 2-6-2018 at 23:21
I actually worked on the development of such a catalyst 25 years ago. Sadly I don't remember anything useful about it, except that it was acidic. I
remember characterizing it by weighing a sample in NH3 atmosphere at varying temperatures.
Finding a suitable OTC catalyst would probably be like looking for a needle in a haystack. battoussai114 - 3-6-2018 at 09:24
I would say that harder than finding a suitable catalyst would be controlling the reaction on a home lab. I may be mixing things up with the
Fischer-Tropsch synthesis but aren't this sort of process usually ran in multitubular reactors because thermal runaway easily makes your product be
carbonized material instead of an useful organic compound?
Anyway, you could start by checking on the properties and how to produce the SAPO-34 catalyst since it seems like one of the catalysts that's
constantly being studied for MTO.Fulmen - 3-6-2018 at 10:07
Sorry, I misread the OP. He's after alkanes, not alkenes. Alkanes are chip as dirt, there really isn't any reasons for making it from methanol. DavidJR - 3-6-2018 at 16:15
Sorry, I misread the OP. He's after alkanes, not alkenes. Alkanes are chip as dirt, there really isn't any reasons for making it from methanol.
Yeah, I had a brief search and found info about making alkenes from methanol, but there's no way it'd be economical to make alkanes from methanol.
And methanol is produced industrially from syngas (a mixture primarily consisting of hydrogen and carbon monoxide) which in turn is made from natural
gas or just about any cheap leftover alkanes.
