Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Ihab Elmasri Sciences

Partial Oxidation of Ethane Using Copper and Proton MFI Catalysts

Current processes for the production of partially oxidized alkanes constitute a large portion of the energy consumption of the petrochemical industry. The conversion of low cost and readily available alkane feedstocks to more useful unsaturated hydrocarbons and oxygenates while making use of cheap oxidants such as oxygen can circumvent the need to rely on the energy intensive and environmentally harmful processes currently implemented. Through the use of a Cu-MFI catalyst, Ihab plans on tackling this issue by synthesizing a collection of copper catalysts with various copper loadings. Varying the number of residual proton sites within a zeolite crystal, or the addition of CuMFI+HMFI catalyst mixtures with different weight ratios, will be useful for maximizing the selectivity toward the partially oxidized product.

Profile image of Ihab Elmasri
Major: Chemical Engineering
Mentor: Mentor: Enrique Iglesia, Chemical Engineering
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