History, Current State, and Prospects for Development of Isobutane Alkylation with Olefins

The history of the formation, development, current state, trends, and prospects for the development of isobutane alkylation with olefins are discussed. It is shown that this process is carried out using various catalysts and technologies, among which sulfuric acid alkylation has a predominant use in refining around the world. Characteristics of domestic and foreign alkylation processes are compared. Data on the construction and beginning of operation of the first domestic industrial sulfuric acid alkylation plants in Grozny are discussed. In addition, data on alkylation plants obtained by lend-lease and built at refineries in Gur'ev, Orsk, Krasnovodsk, and Kuibyshev in 1945-1955 are presented. The prospect of developing the alkylation of isoparaffins with olefins is aimed at the development of technologies using solid catalysts, mainly based on various zeolites. The main foreign companies that have developed promising technologies for the alkylation process on solid catalysts are Mobil Oil Corporation, Sun Oil Company, Universal Oil Products Company, CLG (United States), Akzo Nobel (Holland), Haldor Topsoe (Denmark), INL (United States), UOP (United States), EXELUS (United States), Lurgi (Germany), etc. Among leading domestic research institutes, the following should be named: Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis, Russian Academy of Sciences; Zelinskii Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences; and Grozny State Oil Technical University.