Thesis (M.Eng.)--Chulalongkorn University, 2009

The objectives of this work are the study for understanding methanol dehydration reaction for produce dimethyl ether. By emphasize, the usage zeolite catalysts which in this work was ZSM-5 catalyst. Moreover, in this experiment was divided in two parts that the first was effect of Si/Al atomic ratios and second was effect of particle sizes on dimethyl ether generate performance of zeolite catalysts. From methanol dehydration reaction test with in the temperature range 100 – 300 °C and atmospheric pressure, found that, the zeolite catalyst had lower the value of Si/Al ratio that dimethyl ether selectivity was higher than zeolite catalyst had higher the value of Si/Al ratio. The result show that, performance of dimethyl ether generate depend on the acidity of zeolite catalyst. Moreover, found that in temperature range, At the high temperature that dimethyl ether selectivity was higher than low temperature. And then, when expansion the crystallization time of zeolite catalyst preparation that can observed the smaller particle size of zeolite catalyst. When test methanol dehydration reaction, the smaller particle size of zeolite catalyst performance better than the bigger particle size. And then, investigation about effect of crystallinity of ZSM-5 zeolite catalysts on methanol dehydration found that the optimum crystallinity of ZSM-5 zeolite catalyst is beneficial for catalytic performance.