Effects of operating parameters on oxidative coupling of methane over Na-W-Mn/SiO2 catalyst at elevated pressures

The effects of operating parameters on oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) over Na-W-Mn/SiO2 catalyst have been studied at elevated pressures of 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 MPa under low gaseous hourly space velocity (GHSV) and low temperature conditions. Experimental results show that when the operating pressure is increased, C2+ yield slightly decreases, while the maximum ratio of ethylene to ethane remains unchanged. Moreover, it has been found empirically that increase of pressure does not affect the catalyst behavior permanently, the catalyst recovers its original low pressure performance without hysteresis behavior by reducing the pressure. Under the investigated conditions, when oxygen is completely consumed, the increase of GHSV leads to improvement in C2 selectivity, while C3+ and COx selectivities decrease slightly. The C2+ selectivity increases by increase of nitrogen diluent in the feed, but the C3+ hydrocarbons selectivities decrease with increase of nitrogen since it is possible that further dilution at high pressure may reduce the probability of collision between CH3 and C2+ hydrocarbons. During the stability test at high pressure, the catalyst performance remains unchanged throughout the 20 h running. The fresh and used catalysts were characterized using XRD, SEM and N2 adsorption-desorption methods. It was found that the phase transformation of the support from α-cristobalite to tridymite and quartz does not have obvious effect on catalyst performance at high pressure.