Ethanol dehydration with aerosol-made mesoporous aluminosilicates featuring dispersed active sites

Amorphous aluminosilicates are known for their excellent performance in (bio)ethanol dehydration for ethylene production. Several studies showed that the homogeneous dispersion of Al in amorphous aluminosilicates is the key to obtain active and stable catalysts. However, ensuring a high dispersion of Al in the aluminosilicate matrix remains a complicated task. Here, the aerosol assisted sol-gel (AASG) process is presented as a facile one-step and continuous production method towards highly homogeneous aluminosilicates. We systematically examine the effect of the aluminum loading (1–9 wt.% Al) in silica matrix incorporated via AASG technique on the catalytic activity during ethanol dehydration. Aluminum dispersion, chemical structure, textural properties, and acidic behavior were investigated by SEM EDS, MAS NMR, XPS, nitrogen porosimetry, and infrared spectroscopy combined with pyridine adsorption. Aluminum content is shown to influence textural properties and acidity, and therefore strongly modify catalytic activity. The most active AASG prepared aluminosilicate catalysts exhibited higher activity and on-stream stability if compared to commercial silica alumina. It reached a similar performance to other amorphous aluminosilicates with highly homogeneous Al dispersion prepared via peculiar protocols.