Sulfated Zirconia and Iron- and Manganese-Promoted Sulfated Zirconia: Do They Protonate Alkanes?

Abstract

Because of their high activities for alkane conversion, sulfated zirconia and iron- and manganese-promoted sulfated zirconia have been the objects of much recent attention as a possible next generation of solid acid catalysts for alkane conversion. These catalysts have been suggested to be superacidic on the basis of measurements with adsorbed Hammett indicator bases, but published data determined with other adsorbed bases indicate only moderately strong acid sites. The indicator methods are limited by the opaqueness of the materials and by the inability of the methods to probe a possible set of minority sites that might be responsible for the reactivity and catalytic activity for alkane conversions. Another approach to the challenge of estimating the acid strengths of the reactive and catalytic sites is to investigate the reactivities and catalytic activities of the materials for reactions which, for initiation, require donation of protons from a solid acid to a very weakly basic reactant such as an alkane. Such a test reaction is the acid-catalyzed dehydrogenation of alkanes proceeding by the Haag–Dessau mechanism (Olah type chemistry). This review includes a summary of results for conversion of ethane, propane, and n-butane that are consistent with the postulate that iron- and manganese-promoted sulfated zirconia and sulfated zirconia are capable of protonating light alkanes to give carbonium-ion transition states at temperatures as low as 200°C. The data support the postulate that these proton-donation reactions are important at low alkane conversions and in initiating alkane conversions, although conventional carbenium ion reactions predominate at high conversions.