The improvement of montmorillonite activity in 2-butanol dehydration by metal oxide pillarization

Abstract

Heterogeneous catalysis based on the utilization of natural inorganic material is widely investigated. Among other materials, clay exhibiting interesting physicochemical properties due to its surface area and acidity, but the use of clay facing to the fact that it is not thermal stable in high temperature. In this paper, the improvement on clay properties by pillarization process and study of its role in 2-butanol dehydration were presented. Research steps consist of aluminium oxide, titanium oxide and zinc oxide pillarization to activated natural montmorillonite followed by activity test of pillared material in 2- butanol dehydration. A fluidized bed reactor was used for the catalytic testing and GCMS analysis of the products was performed for the evaluation of catalytic activity, total conversion and the selectivity of the product. Several physicochemical characterization techniques of material were studied by DTATGA, XRD, BET surface area analysis and surface acidity. The role of surface acidity and also pore distribution of the catalysts towards the improvement of 2- butanol conversion into 2-butene and di-sec butyl ether is discussed in this paper