Alkylation of Toluene with tert-Butyl Alcohol over Fe_2O_3/HM Catalyst

The alkylation of toluene with tert-butyl alcohol was carried out with ferric oxide supported H-mordenite(Fe2O3/HM) as catalyst in a 100 mL stainless steel batch reactor equipped with a stirrer.The physicochemical properties of Fe2O3/HM with different Fe2O3 loadings were characterized by X-ray diffraction(XRD),ammonia program temperature desorption(NH3-TPD) and thermogravimetric(TG) techniques,and their catalytic performances were investigated for the tert-butylation of toluene.Since when the Fe2O3 loading is as high as 18%(wt),Fe2O3 could be highly dispersed on the surface of HM,the selectivity of tert-butyltoluene reached 100% and the selectivity of p-tere-butyltoluene reaches 80.6% by using 18%Fe2O3/HM catalyst with calcination temperature of 650℃.The influences of various reaction conditions on 18%Fe2O3/HM catalyst were discussed.It was found that,when using 18%Fe2O3/HM as catalyst,36.6% conversion of toluene and 78.4% selectivity of p-tert-butyltoluene can be obtained under following optimal conditions:reaction temperature of 180℃,reaction time of 3 h,initial pressure of 1.0MPa,molar ratio of tert-butyl alcohol to toluene equal to 3,w(reactant)/w(catalyst) equal to 5 and molar ratio of n-hexane as solvent to toluene equal to 8.