Influence of the fluorine loading level on the skeletal isomerization of 1-butene over fluorine-modified alumina

Abstract

γ-alumina catalysts modified with different weight loadings of fluorine have been used for skeletal isomerization of 1-butene in order to investigate the effects of the fluorine loading level on the conversion of 1-butene and the selectivity to isobutene formation. Increasing the actual loading of fluorine up to 0.012 wt% led to an increase in conversion of 1-butene over fluorine-modified γ-alumina catalysts, while the high selectivity to isobutene remains almost unchanged. On the other hand, a clear trend of increasing 1-butene conversion with a decreasing selectivity to isobutene is observed for the γ-alumina catalysts with higher loadings of fluorine. An analysis of the results from the thermal analysis, NH₃ temperature-programmed desorption, infrared and the 1-butene sorption measurments clearly indicates that the number of strong acid sites in the modified γ-alumina catalysts is greatly enhanced at fluorine loadings higher than 0.012 wt%, leading to the acceleration of 1-butene oligomerization followed by cracking to light hydrocarbons. Therefore, the 1-butene isomerization selectivity from fluorine-modified γ-alumina catalysts can be understood in terms of a competition between the monomolecular and bimolecular reaction pathways, which highly depend on the concentration of strong acid sites.