Towards a Green Synthesis of LAB’s: Effect of Rare Earth Metal Ions on the Benzene Alkylation with 1-Dodecene over NaFAU-Y Zeolites

Chemically modified microporous materials can be prepared as robust catalysts suitable for application in vapor phase processes such as Friedel-Crafts alkylation. In the present paper we have investigated the use of rare earth metal (Ce3+, La3+, RE3+, and Sm3+) exchanged Na-Y zeolites as catalysts for the alkylation of benzene with long chain linear 1-olefin; 1-dodecene. Thermodesorption studies of 2,6-dimethylpyridine adsorbed catalysts (in the temperature range 573 to 873 K) show that the rare earth zeolites are highly Bro¨ nsted acidic in nature. A perfect correlation between catalyst selectivity towards the desired product (2-phenyldodecane) and Bro¨ nsted acid sites amount has been observed. C 2006 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc