Propane ammoxidation over MoVTeNb oxide catalyst in a microchannel reactor

Propane ammoxidation (PAO) is a promising way to produce acrylonitrile from propane instead of propylene. It is found that the catalytic performances of MoVTeNb oxide catalyst for PAO including product selectivity and catalyst stability are very sensitive to the reaction temperature, requiring a narrow temperature window of 440–450 °C to maintain low selectivity to CO x . Owing to the large heat transfer surface area and short heat transfer distance, the temperature gradient in a microchannel reactor (0.5 × 12.7 × 80 mm) can be maintained at less than 0.5 °C as opposed to 43.2 °C in a conventional fixed bed tubular reactor with an inner diameter of 4 mm at a reactor wall temperature of 440 °C. Therefore, PAO reaction can be operated in a microchannel reactor under much harsher reaction conditions to achieve a higher productivity (189.9 kmol/m 3 ·h) while still maintaining a low CO x selectivity and high catalyst stability. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J , 64: 4002–4008, 2018