Elementary reactions and thermodynamic effects in the conversion of propene over an acidic A1MFI Original Research Article

The conversion of propene over H-A1MFI zeolites was investigated at various temperatures and subatmospheric pressure. The overall conversion scheme was cracked down into a set of well known reactions: namely a primary dimerization step, two secondary or tertiary disproportionation reactions involving intermediate carbenium ions within the C6–C9 range and, in addition, a number of hydrogen transfer reactions. Quantitative analysis of the product distributions provided an evaluation of the relative weight of each step depending on the temperature. The variation of the overall conversion with temperature was interpreted in terms of a thermodynamically limited process above 573 K.