Alkylation of Toluene with tert-Butyl Alcohol over La_2O_3/USY Catalyst

The alkylation of toluene with tert-butyl alcohol was carried out with lanthanum oxide supported on ultrastable Y zeolite(La2O3/USY) as catalyst in a 100 mL stainless steel batch reactor equipped with a stirrer.The physicochemical properties of La2O3/USY with different La2O3 loadings were characterized by X-ray diffraction(XRD),ammonia program temperature desorption(NH3-TPD),and their catalytic performances were investigated via the tert-butylation of toluene.When the La2O3 loading is as high as 20%(wt),La2O3 could be highly dispersed on the surface of USY,the selectivity of tert-butyltoluene can reach 99.68% and the selectivity of p-tere-butyltoluene reaches 88.05% by using 20% La2O3/USY catalyst with calcination temperature of 573 K.The influences of various reaction conditions on the catalytic performances of 20% La2O3/USY catalyst were discussed.It was found that,48.59% conversion of toluene and 85.29% selectivity of p-tert-butyltoluene can be obtained under following optimal conditions: calcination temperature of 573 K,reaction temperature of 453 K,reaction time of 3 h,the molar ratio of toluene to tert-butyl alcohol equal to 1:3.