Preparation of mesoporous alumina with large pore size and their supported rhenium oxide catalysts in metathesis of 1-butene and 2-butene to propene

Abstract Mesoporous γ-aluminas with large pore size (up to 19 nm, denoted as MA19) are prepared from dispersed pseudo-boehmite using pluronic P123 as template. It is found that these mesoporous alumina supported rhenium oxide catalysts were more active and have far longer working life-span in gas-phase metathesis of 1-butene and 2-butene to propene than rhenium oxide on conventional alumina with small pore size (5 nm). At 60°C and atmospheric pressure with WHSV= 1 h −1 , the similar stable conversions of butene (ca. 55%) for all the 13 wt% Re 2 O 7 /alumina catalysts were obtained near the chemical equilibrium, and the stable working life-spans of Re 2 O 7 /MA19 were far longer than that of Re 2 O 7 /Al 2 O 3 , being about 70 h and 20 h, respectively.