Abstract: Zeolite β was modified by alkaline solution to enlarge its pore size, and a modified zeolite β supported molybdenum carbide catalyst was prepared using (NH4)6Mo7O24•4H2O as molybdenum source and n-hexane as carbon source. The characterization results of XRD, BET, FT-IR showed that the modified zeolite β possessed high specific surface area and large pore volume; an active β-Mo2C phase of isomerization was obtained by using n-hexane as the source of carburization. The influences of reaction conditions, such as temperature, pressure, space velocity and the hydrogen to hydrocarbon ratio, on the catalytic performance of n-hexane isomerization over β-Mo2C/β-zeolite were investigated. It was found that under the optimum conditions of a reaction temperature of 265℃, a reaction pressure of 1.5MPa, LHSV of 1.0h-1 and a hydrogen to hydrocarbon volume ratio of 200, when the conversion of n-hexane reached 80.97%, the selectivity to isomers and the isomers yield were 72.53% and 58.73%, respectively.

Key words: isomerization, molybdenum carbide, hexane, β-zeolite