C1～C3Alcohol Conversion With Dielectric-Barrier Discharge

Due to oil and other non-renewable energy exhausting and the social energy structure changing, the path of getting high added value chemicals reduce gradually, thus more and more attention has been paid to the developing of new synthetic routes. At present, our country’s coal chemical industry develops rapidly and the technology of methanol from coal is mature, and the production is excess so much, thus the significance of transforming methanol into high added value chemical products becomes greatly. It is well known that plasma is a very effective method to activate molecules. Furthermore, the low temperature plasma is predominantly utilized in methanol conversion for its unique non-equilibrium character. In this paper, the transformation of methanol, ethanol and n-propanol was carried out with the dielectric barrier discharge technology. The results obtained are as following:1. The feed is pumped into the reaction equipment by high pressure constant flowing metering pump, and the methanol steam is cracked by the plasma into radicals. The effects of reactor structure, the reactor structure parameters, discharge reaction parameters and feeding parameters on conversion of methanol and the distribution of the products had been studied. Under the dielectric barrier discharge conditions, the main products are ethanol, n-propanol, ethylene glycol, methane, carbon monoxide, water and other high carbon compounds.2. The transformation of ethanol steam had been studied with the device and the under the optimized reaction conditions which have been used for that of methanol. Under the conditions of the dielectric barrier discharge, the main products are acetaldehyde, formic acid, butanone, isopropano, sec-butyl alcohol, n-propanol and isobutanol, in addition, methane, carbon monoxide, water and some low value-added products have also been obtained.3. We had also studied the transformation of n-propanol by the equipment that used for transforming methanol. Under the conditions of the dielectric barrier discharge, the main products are methane, ethane, propane, acetylene, ethylene, propionaldehyde and3-pentanol and some other high value-added products are also obtained.