Supercritical catalysts of light hydrocarbon conversion. DOE PETC eighth quartery report, July 1, 1995--September 30, 1995

The solid superacid catalysts investigated in this project catalyze hydrocarbon conversions by routes involving carbocation intermediates. This report is a summary of mechanisms of hydrocarbon conversion catalyzed by these and related solid acids. This mechanistic information summarized here is important to the present project because it provides guidance for the modeling of the kinetics of the catalytic butane conversion and propane conversion. Because of the difficulty of determining surface reaction intermediates, understanding of surface reaction mechanisms lags far behind that of solution reaction mechanisms, and what is known about the former is fragmentary and often largely based on presumed analogies with the latter, combined with results such as those from tracer experiments, kinetics experiments, and theoretical chemistry