Alkylation of Isobutane and 2-Butene by Concentrated Sulfuric Acid in a Rotating Packed Bed Reactor

A novel rotating packed bed (RPB) reactor is first adopted to intensify the reaction of isobutane alkylation with 2-butene catalyzed by H2SO4. This work investigated reaction performance, and reaction conditions were optimized. Under the optimal conditions, the research octane number (RON) reached 98.85. Meanwhile, the yields of C8 and trimethylpentanes were 90.65% and 85.47%, respectively. The reaction efficiency was tremendously improved by using RPB due to its high efficiencies of mass transfer and micromixing. More importantly, the inner mole ratio of isobutane to 2-butene was dramatically decreased in RPB, which means the energy cost of material cycling in the alkylation process could be extremely reduced. Moreover, an empirical correlation model was proposed to predict the multiproduct yields and RON with a deviation within +/- 10%. In conclusion, RPB reactor is a highly promising industrial platform for the process of H2SO4 alkylation.