a kinetics study of methanol dehydration to dimethyl ether and catalyst deactivation over γ-al2o3

The deactivation of γ-alumina catalyst in dehydration of methanol to dimethyl ether (dme) was studied using integral method of analysis# catalytic test runs were performed in a fixed-bed integral reactor in the temperature range of 250-300 ºc# a power-law rate expression was used for dehydration reaction and an independent kinetics for catalyst deactivation# favorable fit was observed for experimental conversion-time data with an order of deactivation of unity# the activation energies of main reaction and catalyst deactivation were obtained as 96 and 69 kj/mol, respectively, implying that the former is more sensitive to temperature rise# never-the-less, the temperature-time trajectory strategy could not be applied for compensating catalyst deactivation with time because of increasing thermodynamic limitation for this exothermic equilibrium-limited reaction#