During prior investigations of the synthesis of the novel zeolite YNU-5 (YFI), it was found that a very slight amount of an impurity phase contaminated the desired zeolitic phase. This impurity was very often ZSM-5 (MFI). The phase composition was determined to be sensitive to the water in the synthesis mixture, and it was possible to obtain a pure phase and also to intentionally generate a specific impurity phase. In the present work, trials based on the dimethyl ether-to-olefin (DTO) reaction using a fixed-bed downflow reactor were performed to assess the effect of the purity of YNU-5 on its catalytic performance. Dealuminated pure YNU-5 exhibited rapid deactivation due to coking at time on stream (TOS) values exceeding 5 min. Surprisingly, this deactivation was greatly suppressed when the material contained a trace amount of ZSM-5 consisting of nano-sized particles. The formation of ZSM-5 nanoparticles evidently improved the performance of the catalytic system during the DTO reaction. The product distributions obtained from this reaction using highly dealuminated and very pure YNU-5 resembled those generated by 12-ring rather than 8-ring zeolite catalysts. The high selectivity for desirable C3 and C4 olefins during the DTO reaction over YNU-5 is beneficial.
Keywords: DTO reaction; YNU-5; solid acid catalyst; zeolite.