Promoting Xylene Production in Benzene Methylation using Hierarchically Porous ZSM-5 Derived from a Modified Dry-gel Route

Methylation of benzene is an alternative low-cost route to produce xylenes, but selectivity to xylene remains low over conventional zeolitic catalysts. In this work, a combined dry-gel-conversion and steam-assisted- crystallization method is used to synthesize hierarchically porous zeolite ZSM-5 with varied Si/AI malar ratios. X-ray diffraction （XRD）, N2 physisorption, NH3-temperature programmed desorption （TPD）, scanning electronic microscopic （SEM） measurement and Fourier transform infrared （FT-IR） are employed to characterize the struc- ture and acidity of both hierarchically porous zeolites and their conventional counterparts. The method is found to be applicable to ZSM-5 with molar ratios of Si/A1 from 20 to 180. The ZSM-5 zeolites are used as catalysts for benzene methylation at 460 ℃ to investigate the effect of additional porosity and Si/A1 ratios. At low Si/AI ratios, the benzene conversions over conventional and hierarchical ZSM-5 are close, and selectivity to toluene is high over hierarchical ZSM-5. It is found that hierarchical porosity markedly enhances the utility of zeolite and the se- lectivity towards xylenes via improved mass transport at higher Si/Al ratios. Under an optimized hierarchical ZSM-5 catalvst, xvlene selectivity reaches 34.9% at a Si/AI ratio of 180.