Scale up and stability test for oxidative coupling of methane over Na2WO4-Mn/SiO2 catalyst in a 200 ml fixed-bed reactor

The study of scale up for the oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) has been carried out in a 200 ml stainless steel fixed-bed reactor over a 5wt% Na2WO4-1.9wt% Mn/SiO2 (W-Mn/SiO2) catalyst. The effects of reaction conditions were investigated in detail. The results showed that, with increasing reaction temperature, the gas-phase reaction was enhanced and a significant amount of methane was converted into COX; with the CH4/O2 molar ratio of 5, the highest C2 (ethylene and ethane) yield of 25% was achieved; the presence of steam (as diluent) had a positive effect on the C2 selectivity and yield. Under lower methane gaseous hourly space velocity (GHSV), higher selectivity and yield of C2 were obtained as the result of the decrease of released heat energy. In 100 h reaction time, the C2 selectivity of 66%-61 % and C2 yield of 24.2%-25.4% were achieved by a single pass without any significant loss in catalytic performance.