Catalytic cracking of methylcyclohexane over H-ZSM-5 zeolite and activated charcoal wall-coated microchannel reactor with wavy structure under supercritical conditions

Abstract The present work is the first detailed description of the endothermic catalytic reaction of methylcyclohexane (MCH) over H-ZSM-5 zeolites (HZ) and activated charcoals (AC) coated in a multichannel micro-reactor module with novel ultra-compact wavy structure (MR) under supercritical conditions (550 °C, 5 MPa). The MR has an ultra-compact structure with nine micro-channels in parallel that exhibit a size of 120 × 30 mm and a total cross-sectional area of 36 cm2. The catalytic performance of the conventional tube reactor (TR) packed with HZ and AC catalysts was also studied for comparative purposes. All catalysts and reactors were characterized using various techniques such as field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), ammonia temperature-programmed desorption (NH3-TPD). In general, MRs showed always a significantly enhanced MCH conversion (%) performance and heat sink compared with conventional TRs. AC-coated MR showed the highest MCH conversion (%) performance compared to the other reactors. MCH conversion (%) was higher in the following order AC-coated MR (78.70%) > AC-packed TR (70.49%) > HZ-coated MR (68.87%) > HZ-packed TR (54.81%). The AC-coated MR can be one of the candidates for a heat-absorbing reaction for aircraft cooling system control.