학술논문

The Isobutylene−Isobutane Alkylation Process in Liquid HF Revisited.
Document Type
Article
Source
Journal of Physical Chemistry B. 7/7/2005, Vol. 109 Issue 26, p12946-12955. 10p.
Subject
Language
ISSN
1520-6106
Abstract
Details on the mechanism of HF catalyzed isobutylene−isobutane alkylation were investigated. On the basis of available experimental data and high-level quantum chemical calculations, a detailed reaction mechanism is proposed taking into account solvation effects of the medium. On the basis of our computational results, we explain why the density of the liquid media and stirring rates are the most important parameters to achieve maximum yield of alkylate, in agreement with experimental findings. The ab initio Car−Parrinello molecular dynamics calculations show that isobutylene is irreversibly protonated in the liquid HF medium at higher densities, leading to the ion pair formation, which is shown to be a minimum on the potential energy surface after optimization using periodic boundary conditions. The HF medium solvates preferentially the fluoride anion, which is found as solvated [FHF]- or solvated F-·(HF)3. On the other hand, the tert-butyl cation is weakly solvated, where the closest HF molecules appear at a distance of about 2.9 Å with the fluorine termination of an HF chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]