Gallium Zeolites for Light Paraffin Aromatization

The primary original goal of this project was to investigate the active state of gallium-containing MFI catalysts for light paraffin aromatization, in particular the state of gallium in the active material. Our original hypothesis was that the most active and selective materials were those which contained gallium zeolitic cations, and that previously reported conditions for the activation of gallium-containing catalysts served to create these active centers. We believed that in high silica materials such as MFI, ion-exchange is most effectively accomplished with metals in their 1+ oxidation state, both because of the sparsity of the anionic ion-exchange sites associated with the zeolite, and because the large hydration shells associated with aqueous 3+ cations hinder transport. Metals such as Ga which commonly exist in higher oxidation states need to be reduced to promote ion-exchange and this is the reason that reduction of gallium-containing catalysts for light paraffin aromatization often yields a dramatic enhancement in catalytic activity. We have effectively combined reduction with ion-exchange and we term this combined process ''reductive solid-state ion-exchange''. Our hypothesis has largely been proven true, and a number of the papers we have published directly address this hypothesis