The Petroleum Naphtha Reforming Reaction

The reforming of petroleum fractions boiling between about 90 and 200°C. to high octane gasolines constitutes one of the largest scale industrial catalytic operations of our times. The quantity processed over platinum catalysts exceeds 2 X 10 liters/day. A majority of the reactions involved are polystep hydrocarbon conversions (see refs. 10,11, and the extensive review of the art by Ciapetta et al., 31). 

Weisz and Prater 28) have pointed out that, while on platinum reforming catalysts alkylcyclohexanes will proceed rapidly to aromatics, the conversion of alkylcyclopentanes to aromatics becomes the key dualfunctional reforming reaction in the neighborhood of 98 (R.O.N. with 3 ml. 

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