The College of Engineering at the University of Baghdad witnessed the public defense of the Master’s thesis by Sura Kareem Hussein in the Department of Chemical Engineering. Her thesis, titled “Preparation of Bifunctional Pt/Sulfated Zirconia-Y Zeolite Composite Catalysts for N-Alkane Isomerization” was presented on Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Professor Mahmoud Omar Hall within the Department of Chemical Engineering, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Hayder Abdul Kareem Rasheed and Dr. Ban Abdulrahman Ahmed.
The present work deals with isomerization process, which has become one of the most important sources to improve the octane number of gasoline production and to comply with the environmental regulations. This study aims to prepare bifunctional catalysts to produce high quality gasoline by isomerization process to convert normal alkanes to iso alkanes with a high octane number.
This study approved that the prepared composite catalyst of sulfated zirconia and HY zeolite can give a high conversion in isomerization, the results showed that the catalyst with a smaller pore size and higher silica to alumina ratio gives better results for n-hexane, n-heptane and light naphtha isomerization. where the conversion reaches 73.05 mol% for n-heptane, 57.91 mol% for n-hexane and 45.66 mol% % for light naphtha at 160 °C.
The research provided several key recommendations, including investigating the effect of calcination temperature on the free and bound sulfur of sulfated zirconia. Moreover investigating the isomerization process with different pressure, LHSV, and H2/HC mole ratio.
Following the academic discussion with the defense committee, the researcher was awarded a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering.
