Paper Title
Catalytic Ethanol Dehydration of Ethanol to Diethyl Ether Over Beta Zeolite with Different Mixed Na-H form in Catalysts

Abstract
In the present study, the catalytic ethanol dehydration to diethyl ether was investigated using beta zeolite catalysts with the Si/Al molar ratio of 13 having different Na and mixed Na-H form. First, the Na form of beta zeolite (Na-BEA) catalyst was synthesized by the hydrothermal process in an autoclave at 135°C for 20 h. Then, beta zeolite catalysts having different mixed Na-H forms was synthesized under ion-exchange conditions using the v/w ratio of 20 ml NH4NO3/g cat. under continues agitation at 70°C for 2 h/cycle. In this study, the cycle was chosen as one cycle (BEA-W1). These catalysts were characterized by various techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2 physisorption, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and ammonia temperature-programmed desorption (NH3-TPD). The dehydration reaction of ethanol in gas phase was performed in a fixed-bed continuous flow micro reactor using 100 mg of catalysts with1.45 ml/h (22.9 h-1 WHSV)at atmospheric pressure and the reaction temperature ranged from 150 to 400°C. The results presented that theBEA-W1 catalyst exhibited higher ethanol conversion than Na-BEA giving selectivity of 100% for diethyl ether at low temperature (150oC) because it has higher surface area and the optimal acid strength for catalyzing this reaction. Keywords - Beta zeolite, Diethyl ether, Ethanol dehydration, Zeolite