Abstrakt

The catalytic dehydrations of methanol and n-butanol on strongly acidic solids have been tested in two types of microreactors in the gas phase between 80 – 240 ºC. For the methanol transformation to dimethyl ether, the conversion was evaluated in situ with an innovative use of the FTIR spectroscopy in batch microreactor. The same catalysts were used for the conversion of n-butanol to butenes and n-butyl-ether under similar conditions, determined using a flow microreactor with the conventional gas chromatography downstream analysis. The catalysts included the Wells-Dawson type heteropolyacids, H6P2W18O62 and H6P2Mo18O62, supported on TiO2 and/or BN. The activity orders obtained in those methods were compared to that obtained by the ammonia sorption using the gas-flow through microcalorimeter at 150 ºC. The significant effect of TiO2 and BN supports in the methanol and butanol dehydrations makes the TiO2 and BN-supported Well-Dawson type heteropolyacids potentially relevant for industrial transformations of biomass derived feedstock.