A novel process to produce green fuel from the selective oligomerization of butenes  via catalytic distillation was  developed. Catalytic distillation (CD) is a green reactor technology which combines reaction and separation in the same distillation column. CD could provide  enhanced conversion and selectivity to the desired products. Significant energy savings will be obtained for exothermic processes due to the utilization of the reaction heat for distillation. Selective  dimerization of isobutene to isooctenes and hydrogenation of isooctenes to isooctane with an octane number of 100 were successfully achieved in a single distillation column using novel catalytic distillation packings with Ni for the oligomerization reaction and Pd for the hydrogenation reaction. One notable feature for this CD process is  that much lower hydrogen partial pressure was required for the hydrogenation reaction compared to hydrogenation carried out in a batch or semi-batch reactor.

Production of green fuel via catalytic distillation

245th National Meeting (2013)

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