Perspectives for synthesis of linear alkylbenzenes via homogenous catalytic alkylation of benzene with olefin-containing complex mixtures: analysis of products composition using two-dimensional chromatography

Abstract

Multicomponent mixtures with wide fraction of olefins obtained from thermal pyrolysis of higher paraffin’s were used for catalytic alkylation of benzene. Reaction was carried out in the presence of methanesulfonic acid as a homogenous catalyst, which has low corrosive properties compared to common industrial catalytic systems. The use of two-dimensional gas chromatography to analyze the composition of both the initial multicomponent raw material and the alkylation products allowed us to tune the initial conditions of the reaction and correctly calculate important parameters of the process such as selectivity and conversion. Thus, depending on the feedstock, the selectivity of LAB formation was varied in the range of 82.4–88.3 %, while for the 2-LAB it was varied between 29.2–41.3 % at ~90 % olefin conversion.