Nafion resin isobutane alkylation

Nafion-H, a perfluorinated sulfonic acid resin, is another strongly acidic solid that has been explored as alkylation catalyst. Rprvik et al. (204) examined unsupported Nafion-H with a nominal surface area of 0.2 m2/g (surface area of a swellable polymer is difficult to define) in isobutane/2-butene alkylation at 353 K and compared it with a CeY zeolite. The zeolite gave a better alkylate and higher conversion than Nafion-H, which produced significant amounts of octenes and heavy-end products. The low surface area of the resin and questions about the accessibility of the sulfonic acid groups probably make the comparison inadequate. 

To increase the surface area, the resin can be supported on porous carriers, or it can be directly incorporated into silica by a sol-gel preparation technique. Both methods have been used by Botella et al. (205), who compared several composite Nafion/silica samples with varying surface areas and Nafion loadings for isobutane/2-butene alkylation at 353 K. Furthermore, supported and unsupported Nafion samples were used. As expected, the unsupported resin with its low... 

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