Bronsted acid catalyzed dehydration of neat supercritical tert-butanol in a capillary micro-reactor

摘要

Dehydration of supercritical f-butanol to yield 2-methyl-propene was observed to occur rapidly and in high yield at elevated pressures without addition of a catalyst.A capillary micro-reactor was used to carry out the reaction at pressures up to 3.1 kbar.The products were characterized in situ using FTIR and NMR and confirmed using GC-MS.The dehydration reaction is proposed to occur by a self-catalyzed Bronsted acid mechanism.An addition driving force for the reaction was the phase separation of the 2-methyl-propene product.Self-catalyzed dehydration of f-butanol is a limiting factor for operations in supercritical f-butanol,but it implies the f-butanol may be employed as a self-neutralizing catalyst under these conditions.