Author index

Abstract

Oligomerization of light olefins allows the production of clean, sulphur-free fuels or fuel additives with reduced aromatics content, and useful chemicals. Commercial heterogeneous catalytic oligomerization technologies were developed to meet market demands in flexible fashions, whereby the operating conditions may be adjusted in favor of the desired product specifications and yields. For achieving superior performances, the development of expeditious evaluation and optimization tools is important, albeit not trivial because light olefins oligomerization involves complex reaction systems and product quality depends on many factors. In this sense, the design of experiments (DoE) and response surface methodology (RSM) are valuable tools, yet unexploited for light olefins oligomerization processes. In this work, DoE/RSM models were developed and validated for the oligomerization of 1-butene – derivable from fossil or renewable sources of organic carbon – over a superior hierarchical zeotype catalyst, under high pressure, continuous flow conditions, targeting clean diesel range products. The models allowed to investigate the individual and cross effects of reaction pressure, temperature and weight hourly space velocity on conversion and yields of specific product fractions. The optimization studies also accounted for product quality features such as, reduced aromatics content; these studies counted with the analytical input of Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography with Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (GC×GC-ToFMS) for characterizing the products. Importantly, DoE/RSM tools may contemplate not only kinetic data, but also product quality indicators, and help identify most relevant process parameters impacting on the productivity.