Gasoline upgrading by self-etherification with ethanol on modified beta-zeolite

This research studied the modification of beta-zeolite for self-etherification process of fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) gasoline and ethanol. The catalytic activity of reducing olefins in FCC gasoline accompanied with higher ethanol substitution was evaluated; moreover, the influences of Si/Al ratio in beta zeolite and the addition of copper (Cu) or magnesium (Mg) in the beta zeolite on the reaction performance were also investigated. It was found that the beta zeolite with Si/Al ratio of 27 (beta27) can enhance higher ethanol conversion than those of 42 and 77. In addition, the modification of beta27 by Cu (Cu-beta27) can further improve the ethanol conversion from 38.2% (beta27) to 55.1%, and the olefin content reduction from 46.2% (beta27) to 62.4%. The improvement of the catalytic activity also enhances the obtained gasoline properties i.e. lower blending Reid vapor pressure (bRvp) and higher research octane number (RON).