High Aluminum Content Beta Zeolite as an Active Lewis Acid Catalyst for γ-Valerolactone Decarboxylation

Butene plays an essential role in the area of petrochemical industry. The production of butene from the biomass-derived platform molecule γ-valerolactone (GVL) is of great interest. GVL decarboxylation reaction occurred under high temperature because the catalytic activity of the catalysts used before was not efficient for this reaction. In this work, beta zeolite with Si:Al = 5 was synthesized and used for GVL decarboxylation. It exhibited a higher catalytic performance than other commercial zeolites due to a large number of Lewis acid sites and relatively large micropore size. At 300 °C, 99.5% GVL conversion and 98% butene yield were obtained after condition optimizing. For further research, the influence of the Brønsted/Lewis acid ratio was investigated, and it turned out that Lewis acid was more active than Brønsted acid in crystalline material on GVL decarboxylation for the first time.