The Study of Direct Synthesis of DME from Syngas Containing N_2 in Slurry-Bed Reactor

The mechanical mixing method was used to prepare the bifunctional catalyst for DME synthesis from Cu-based catalyst for methanol synthesis and HZSM-5 zeolite. The DME synthesis from syngas containing N_2 was studied in the slurry-bed reactor. The results indicated that the speed of rotator, space velocity of the feed gas, the pressure and temperature of the reaction would influence the reaction performance. Using slurry-bed reactor, reaction heat is easy to remove from catalyst bed, which would avoid hot-spot on catalyst bed, prevent catalyst from sintering and then keep catalyst stable, but much lower CO conversion was obtained due to the extra resistance of mass transfer through liquid phase. Using an integrated reactor of slurry-bed reactor connecting with fixed-bed reactor, not only high CO conversion of 90% and high DME selectivity of 75% were obtained, but also high catalyst stability was kept during DME synthesis.