1806
Energy & Fuels 2004, 18, 1806-1813
Alkylation of 3-Methylthiophene with 2-Methyl-2-butene over a Zeolitic Catalyst Virginie Bellie`re,† Christophe Geantet,† Michel Vrinat,*,† Youne`s Ben-Taaˆrit,† and Yuji Yoshimura‡ Institut de Recherches sur la Catalyse, 2 av A. Einstein, 69626 Villeurbanne Cedex, France, and National Institute of Materials and Chemical Research, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8565, Japan Received February 19, 2004
Sulfur removal remains a challenging task for refiners. To attain high desulfurization levels for gasoline, new processes were recently patented. One of them proposed to separate sulfur compounds by distillation after being weighed down by alkylation with olefins present in the feed. In this study, the transformation mechanism of the alkylation of 3-methylthiophene with 2-methyl-2-butene was studied in a batch reactor over zeolitic catalysts at 358 K. The first step of this study was devoted to the hydrodynamic of the reactor, to ensure that the reaction proceeds under chemical control. A detailed mechanistic study, including competitive catalytic experiments, then is reported.
1. Introduction Deep desulfurization of gasoline is receiving increased attention in the research community, because of increasingly stringent regulations on fuel specifications in many countries. For environmental protection goals, the European Union has recently issued regulations that will require refineries to reduce the sulfur content of gasoline from a current average of 150 parts per million by weight (ppmw) to
