Zeolites carbonium ions, interaction with

Several reaction pathways for the cracking reaction are discussed in the literature. The commonly accepted mechanisms involve carbocations as intermediates. Reactions probably occur in catalytic cracking are visualized in Figure 4.14 [17,18], In a first step, carbocations are formed by interaction with acid sites in the zeolite. Carbenium ions may form by interaction of a paraffin molecule with a Lewis acid site abstracting a hydride ion from the alkane molecule (1), while carbo-nium ions form by direct protonation of paraffin molecules on Bronsted acid sites (2). A carbonium ion then either may eliminate a H2 molecule (3) or it cracks, releases a short-chain alkane and remains as a carbenium ion (4). The carbenium ion then gets either deprotonated and released as an olefin (5,9) or it isomerizes via a hydride (6) or methyl shift (7) to form more stable isomers. A hydride transfer from a second alkane molecule may then result in a branched alkane chain (8). The... 

The elementary reaction steps of the hydrocarbons considered in this section are summarized in Fig. 8. Tlie occurrence of monomolecular reactions with linear hydrocarbons that produce hydrogen and alkane fragments was first demonstrated by Haag and Dessau [94], For convenience, the zeolite lattice to which the proton is attached is not explicitly shown in the scheme. However, it will become clear later that proton activation cannot be understood properly without explicitly taking into account the interaction of the carbonium and carbenium ion intermediates with the negatively charged zeolite wall. 

Early IR and UV-VIS spectroscopic studies on the formation of carbonium ions from triphenyl methyl compounds on zeolites, titania and alumina were carried out by Karge [111]. In 1979, upon interaction of olefins Hke ethene and propene with zeoHtes CoNaY, NiCaNaY, PdNaY and HY, the appearance of electronic bands between 230 and 700 nm was observed by Garbowski and PraHaud and attributed to an allylic carbenium ion which upon thermal treatment transforms into polyenyl carbenium ions and/or aromatic compounds [112]. These findings were corroborated and extended by studies of the interaction of propene, cyclopropane and frans-butene on zeoHtes NaCoY and HM [30]. In spite of the obscuration of the spectrum in the range between 450 and 700 nm by the threefold spHt d-d band of tetrahedraUy coordinated Co(II) ions in the case of zeoHte NaCoY,the development of bands near 330,385 and 415 nm was assigned to unsaturated carbocations. 

In the first part of this section we have shown for zeolite solid acids that carbenium or carbonium ion intermediates are typically present as transition states or unstable intermediates. The activation energies depend on the deprotonation energy of the zeolite, the stabilization of the charged cationic intermediates by screening effects and by their interaction with the negative charge left on the zeolite lattice. 

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