Deactivation resistance effect of alkane co-feeding on methane dehydroaromatization and active GaO+ species in Ga/HZSM-5 for BTX production

An alternative feedstock is urgently required to produce valuable aromatic compounds due to the growing demand for chemicals, drastic fluctuations in crude oil supply, and especially recent oil prices. Hence, in this study, as an alternative potential production for aromatic compounds, the codehydroaromatization of natural gas (mol ratio of CH 4 :C 2 H 6 :C 3 H 8 = 85:10:5) was investigated over Ga/HZSM-5 catalysts at a relatively low temperature of 650 °C. The optimal amount of Ga loading was found to be 3 wt% for the highest aromatic formation. Profound characterizations revealed that the selective formation of GaO + (Ga 3+ ) is crucial to obtaining more aromatics from the natural gas feed. In addition, since methane is a significantly stable chemical, formidable energy consumption is necessary to progress reactions. The effect of light hydrocarbon co-feeding ( i.e. , ethane and propan…