Recent progress in selective catalytic conversion of polycyclic hydrocarbons over zeolite catalysts

This paper is an account of our recent work which demonstrates that high-value chemicals can be obtained from polycyclic hydrocarbons by shape-selective conversion over certain 12-MR or 10-MR zeolite catalysts or zeolite-supported metal catalysts. We are studying shape-selective alkylation of naphthalene into 2,6-dialkylnaphthalene, ring-shift isomerization of sym-octahydrophenanthrene into sym-octahydroanthracene, shape-selective alkylation of biphenyl into 4,4′-dialkylbiphenyl, conformational isomerization of cis-decalin into trans-decalin, selective hydrogenation of naphthalene into either cis-or trans-decalin, and regie-selective hydrogenation of heteroatom-containing aromatic compounds. The products of such selective reactions are value-added chemicals, specialty chemicals, monomers of advanced polymer materials such as high-performance polyesters and liquid crystalline polymers, or components of advanced thermally stable aviation jet fuels for high-Mach aircraft.