Toluene Alkylation Reactions over Y-Type Zeolite Catalysts: An Experimental and Kinetic Study

The present study demonstrated an improvement in both 1-heptene conversion and mono-heptyltoluene selectivity. It simultaneously depicted the isomerization reactions of 1-heptene and toluene alkylation over Y zeolite catalysts having a Si/Al of 3.5 and a surface area of 817 m2/g. The physical properties of the fresh zeolite catalyst were characterized using XRD, FTIR, XRF, TPD, and N2 adsorption–desorption spectroscopy. The experimental part was carried out in a 100 mL glass flask connected to a reflux condenser at different reaction temperatures ranging from 70 to 90 °C, toluene:1-heptene ratios of 3–8, and catalyst weights of 0.25–0.4 g. The highest conversion of ~96% was obtained at the highest toluene:1-heptene ratio (i.e., 8:1), 0.25 g of zeolite Y, at 180 min of reaction time and under a reaction temperature of 90 °C. However, the selectivity of 2-heptyltoluene reached its highest value of ~25% under these conditions. Likewise, the kinetic modeling developed in this study helped describe the proposed reaction mechanism by linking the experimental results with the predicted results. The kinetic parameters were determined by nonlinear regression analysis using the MATLAB® package genetic algorithm. The ordinary differential equations were integrated with respect to time using the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method, and the resulting mole fractions were fitted against the experimental data. The mean relative error (MRE) values were calculated from the experimental and predicted results, which showed a reasonable agreement with the average MRE being ~11.7%. The calculated activation energies showed that the reaction rate follows the following order: coking (55.9–362.7 kJ/mol) > alkylation (73.1–332.1 kJ/mol) > isomerization (69.3–120.2 kJ/mol), indicating that isomerization reactions are the fastest compared to other reactions. A residual activity deactivation model was developed to measure the deactivation kinetic parameters, and the deactivation energy value obtained was about 48.2 kJ/mol.