Alkaline earth metal ion-exchanged β zeolite supported Pt catalysts for hydroisomerization of n-heptane

Alkaline earth metal (Mg, Ca, Sr and Ba) ions were exchanged into Hb zeolite, which were used as the supports to load the noble metal Pt to prepare bifunctional catalysts for hydroisomerization of n-heptane. The catalysts were char- acterized by ICP, XRD, BET, NH3-TPD, H2-TPR and H2-chemisorption techniques, and evaluated in an atmospheric fixed bed reactor. The catalysts promoted by the alkaline earth metals are revealed to present much higher selectivity to isomerization than the counterpart Pt/Hb. Moreover, the Ba-bearing catalyst loaded with 0.4 wt% Pt and 5:1 molar ratio of Ba to Pt gives a very high selectivity to iso-heptanes 95.4% with a considerable high conversion of n-heptane 61.7%. The promotion effect of alkaline earth metals is briefly discussed in relation to characterization data.