CATALYTIC CRACKING OVER CRYSTALLINE ALUMINOSILICATES .I. INSTANTANEOUS RATE MEASUREMENTS FOR HEXADECANE CRACKING

A novel microreactor is described in which product distribution and instantaneous rates of cracking can be evaluated for hydrocarbon reactants having boiling points up to 600° F. Using this tool, the decline in activity of catalysts was measured at on-stream times from less than a second to 2 minutes of n-hexadecane cracking. Although the rate of cracking decreases by a factor of 10 from 1 second to 1 minute on stream, the distribution of products does not change during this aging process. A crystalline aluminosilicate catalyst, having over 10 times the activity of a 46 Al amorphous silica-alumina catalyst for cracking n-hexadecane, declines in activity at the same rate as the amorphous catalyst. Product distributions from these two catalysts have significant differences which may be due to higher relative rates of hydrogen transfer reactions to carboncarbon scission reactions over the crystalline aluminosilicate catalyst. © 1969, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.