CATALYST DEVELOPMENT FOR AROMATICS PRODUCTION FROM CARBON DIOXIDE AND HYDROGEN

• Main Author: Fahmi Al Haq, Baha'ul
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Teknik (Rekayasa, enjinering dan kegiatan berkaitan)
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/83255
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have a negative impact on the environment, but CO2 is also a cheap and renewable source. Indonesia has a large source of CO2 from the Natuna gas field of 32,200 Billion Standard Cubic Feet, with production reaching 174.51 thousand tons in 2021. On the other hand, although benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX) are of limited petroleum origin, the market demand for BTX continues to expand by 3.8% in the period 2023–2031. This makes BTX an attractive compound to be used as a CO2 hydrogenation product. Fe metal-based tandem catalysts with Cu promoter and HZSM-5 zeolite are often used in this process. Research shows that the hierarchical structure in zeolites has a positive effect on catalyst performance and stability. In this study, the effect of using Cu on the catalyst and adding polyethylene glycol (PEG) of various molecular weights as a mesoporous agent on the catalyst activity will be observed. The synthesis of metal and zeolite catalysts was carried out separately, and each will be characterized before being tested for activity against carbon dioxide-hydrogen feed and ethylene gas in a fixed bed microreactor. The results showed that the addition of Cu metal was able to increase the specific surface area of the catalyst up to seven times and decrease the reduction temperature of Fe oxide, giving a CO2 conversion of 76.76% and an olefin-paraffin ratio of 1.376. The use of PEG with a molecular weight of 400 g mol-1 increased the presence of pores between 5–50 nm and increased the acidity of the zeolite catalyst compared to no PEG, which gave the best activity with an ethylene conversion of 98.1% and a liquid product yield of 54.4%, dominated by olefin compounds. The 5.53%Cu-Fe2O3/Com-Z tandem catalyst provided the greatest C5+ product selectivity, due to the oligomerization process of olefin compounds on the zeolite catalyst side.