Surface acidity studies on active aluminas by means of the amine titration method and heterogeneous isotopic exchange using HTO

Abstract The maximum sorption capacity of n-butylamine (A + n-but ), the exchange capacity of HTO (A HTO ) and the acid strength distribution (ASD) - titration of n-butylamine using arylmethanols as indicators - were measured for a series of commercial active aluminas. A + n-but was formally regarded as total acidity and was found to be larger than A HTO , the latter representing a measure of the Broensted acidity. On the other hand, the cumulative acidity derived from ASD gave values smaller or equal to A HTO . Changes in A HTO and A + n-but within a series of aluminas manufactured at different calcination temperatures gave the expected results which were also supported by infrared spectro…