Skeletal isomerization of 1-butene over mesoporous materials

Abstract

On the skeletal isomerization of 1-butene, mesoporous materials with mesopores too large to expect any shape selectivity have been used in order to investigate the effects of the concentration of acid sites on the conversion of 1-butene and the selectivity for isobutene. The concentrations of acid sites can be varied through the control of the Si/Al ratio. The conversion of 1-butene increases with increasing the aluminium content of mesoporous materials, while the selectivity for isobutene decreases. The results of ammonia TPD, IR measurement of 1-butene adsorption, and TG analysis of used catalysts indicate that distant location of activated 1-butene molecules induces the monomolecular reaction over the mesoporous materials with low aluminium content, resulting in high selectivity for skeletal isomerization. On the mesoporous material with high aluminium content, however, the high concentration of activated 1-butene molecules accelerates the multimolecular oligomerization and, thus, reduces the selectivity.