Activity Enhancement of Ferrierite in Dimethyl Ether Carbonylation Reactions through Recrystallization with Sodium Oleate

Methyl acetate (MA) has a wide range of applications as an important industrial chemical. Traditional MOR zeolite for carbonylation of DME to MA accumulated carbon easily because of a 12-membered ring (12 MR) channel. In this work, we innovatively developed the method of recrystallization ferrierite (FER) zeolite using special chelating ligand sodium oleate which can affect ions other than alkali metals. The characterization results of N(2) adsorption, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) show that hydrothermal recrystallization of ferrierite using sodium oleate resulted in a higher Si/Al ratio, a bigger specific surface area and a larger number of Brønsted acid sites in the eight MR channels, which was more efficient in the reaction of carbonylation of dimethyl ether than ordinary alkali treatment.