Dehydration of methyl lactate catalyzed by modified zeolites
Abstract: Acrylates, important organic intermediates, were needed in increasingly huge amounts. However, the pressing supply situation of petroleum challenged the conventional petrobased process of acrylate production and made the biobased process potentially feasible in economy.
This paper investigated the catalytic performances of zeolites X, Y and ZSM-5 after ion exchange treatment in the dehydration of methyl lactate to methyl acrylate. The ion exchanged Y had much higher selectivity compared to ion exchanged ZSM-5, though the modified ZSM-5 had higher activity. The relatively high selectivity of zeolite Y might have correlation with its big-pore structure. Zeolite NaY was exchanged with K+ to tune the acidity of NaY. This modified zeolite showed best performance among other modified zeolite catalysts. The reaction temperature, LHSV and other conditions were optimized for the potassium exchanged zeolite NaY, and the yield of methyl acrylate was elevated.
Key words: methyl acrylate; methyl lactate; molecular sieve; ion exchange
