Theoretical and experimental study on the selectivity of dehydrogenation of α-limonene in ZSM-5 and zeolite-Y

Dehydrogenation of the natural terpene α-limonene to the industrially important p-cymene was studied over two zeolite-supported Pd catalysts, ZSM-5 and zeolite-Y. Reactor tests indicate that transalkylation of the p-cymene product can be avoided by employing the shape-selective properties of a medium-pore ZSM-5 catalyst. The diffusion properties of the three isomers of cymene were then calculated in the two zeolites using molecular mechanics. In case of ZSM-5, p-cymene was found to have the lowest barrier of the three isomers for diffusion through the straight, spherical channel of the zeolite. For zeolite-Y, differences in diffusivity for the three isomers were very small. Theory and experiments showed, in excellent agreement, that only ZSM-5 selectively produces p-cymene. This work shows that molecular mechanics is a powerful and reliable method for the screening of zeolites for performing shape-selective catalysis.